Rushing to the meet the previously announced timeline for a new law on the Russian Arctic, the Ministry of Regional Development is teaming up with external consultants. In a tender announcement, the ministry offers bidders five million RUB for the drafting of the legislative document.
The Russian government has earlier confirmed that the new law will be adopted in the course of 2013. As previously reported, the ministry has already presented several key elements of the document.
The law will determin the extension of Russian Arctic land territories and “the rules of the game” both for the ones living and working there, newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta reports. The document will also outline methods for the economical stimulation of the region. According to Aleksei Konovalov, a representative of the government Marine Collegium, the law will be followed also by an Arctic development strategy, as well as by a special programme on the region. The latter two documents will be presented to the government already on 15 November this year, he says to RG.ru.
There is a major conflict of interests in the Arctic between fisheries, the oil industry, the military and transportation authorities, and “this is all very hard to combine”, Konovalov said.
The new documents will follow up the Arctic policy document adopted in 2008.
The introduction of a Law on the Arctic was proposed already in the late 1990s by the State Committee on the North (Goskomsevera). However, with the abolishment of the committee in 1999, the work with the legislative document stalled. Aleksei Konovalov now argues that Russia again should establish an authority exclusively responsible for Arctic issues.
