Kanerva's ambitious EU foreign policy agenda

In a recent speech (fi), Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva (National Coalition Party) said there should be majority decision making in European Union foreign policy. I'm not sure the President and the Prime Minister will be pleased, but at least Kanerva added the caveat that important national questions - are there any other kind? - should still be decided unanimously. Now all we need is an unanimous agreement that unanimity is needed to decide what are important national questions, and consensus will rule the day.

In the same article, we learn that Kanerva wouldn't describe the relations between EU and Russia with the word "challenge", but rather "ambition". How does that work?

"Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva, how would you describe relations between EU and Russia?"

"Relations between EU and Russia are ambition."

"Good one, sir."

Stubb's profile

British blogger Jon Worth likes National Coalition Party MEP Alex Stubb's website.

Blair for EU President

What a terrible idea this is. Admittedly a lot of people in a lot of different countries know Tony Blair, which can't be said for most possible candidates. Alas, he's known for making a disastrous mistake and then not owning up to it, i.e. for showing bad judgment and not being particularly trustworthy. That sort of fame isn't really a desirable quality in a candidate.

Jorma Ollila, wise man

It came out yesterday that Jorma Ollila of Nokia fame will become one of two vice chairs in the European Union's "Reflection Group". The others will be former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga. Ollila stands out in that crowd for not being a politician. However, he has taken part in political discussions in Finland, even moderating televised election debates.

Ollila commented (fi) that the essential thing is to think about Europe's role in the world. A vague statement like that is probably suitable at the moment, as the group of wise men (and Vike-Freiberga) is not allowed to take issue with EU's enlargement, financing, or organs. In fact, one gets the impression that the group was set up so that French President Nicolas Sarkozy wouldn't pout.

Some past EU-related statements from Ollila:

"Jorma Ollila thinks that Europe has four challenges in attracting investment in industrial research and development. Ollila demands simplifying public regulations, removing obstacles from common markets, better use of information and communications technology, and improving the efficiency of research and development." -- Tekniikka & Talous (fi)

"Ollila has joined the list of internationally influential figures who ask for radical action from states to combat climate change.

"Ollila especially thanks the EU's emissions trading. According to him, emissions trading is needed so that the price gap between fossilized and renewable energy sources can be closed." -- Helsingin Sanomat (fi)

Headline of the day

Malta Independent: "EU summit in Brussels: A series of victories for Malta –-PM Gonzi". Oh, so that's what it was.

How Russia is like Tex Willer

Apropos of handling foreign policy, the latest number of Europa magazine (fi) carried an interview with Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva on Russia and the European Union.

The main takeaway from the article is that Kanerva supports an "active" Russia policy. Russia shouldn't be driven out of common negotiations. EU needs Russia and Russia needs EU. This topic also prompted the best Kanerva-ism of the interview: "Driven into a corner, Russia won't stay there, but break out like Tex Willer."

According to Kanerva, the security guarantees mentioned in the not-a-constitution don't remove the need for a discussion on NATO membership. "They are different types of solutions. EU's guarantees aren't interesting for NATO members. All options are needed." He also called for a common EU energy policy as a way to stop Russia from applying the principles of divide and conquer.

Russia proposes wood duty solution

According to (fi) European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, the subject of Russia's plan to rise wood export duties prohibitively high dominated the trade policy talks at the EU-Russia summit. Russia seeks to tie the export duties to its entry into the World Trade Organization. Russia says the export duties will return to normal once it has been accepted as a member whereas the EU has agreed to support Russia's membership only on the condition that such trade barriers don't exist.

In essence Russia is saying to the EU, "You go first," to which the EU responds, "No, you go first." We can only hope that eventually some diplomat extraordinaire will suggest, "Hey, what if we both go at the same time?" It's a crazy idea, but it just might work.

Vanhanen's approach in EU talks

A charge that surfaces whenever there's bad EU-related news is that Prime Minister Vanhanen (Centre Party) is a wimp who fails to properly stand up for national interest. Further, things would go better if only former Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen (Social Democratic Party) was still in charge. Lipponen, the theory holds, had awesome international connections and was active in all matters EU. (As far as I can tell, an "active EU policy" seems to mean that one actively pushes for decisions that will be made regardless of whether one supports them.)

Recently Vanhanen's performance in the 141 agricultural subsidy issue has been criticized and compared unfavorably to the doubtlessly much more positive results Lipponen would obtain. Now Lipponen has defended Vanhanen's approach:

Speaking on YLE's Saturday political programme Lauantaiseura, Lipponen noted that the 141 agricultural subsidy for southern Finland was only supposed to be temporary.

He said the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Sirkka-Liisa Anttila and Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen have taken the right approach in talks with the EU, and deserve the full support of Parliament.

[...] [Lipponen] says Finland should not undermine constructive EU politics with threats, but try and negotiate a good compromise for all concerned.

The comments put a damper on the notion that this wouldn't have happened in Lipponen's time, I think.

Addendum: But Lipponen did say that the government and MPs should be more "active" e.g. in energy questions.

The 411 on the 141

The biggest European Union related story of the week was, naturally enough... agricultural subsidies. Something or other happened with some minor treaty, but that was inconsequential compared to the government's struggle to defend the so-called 141 subsidies, named after the 141st article of Finland's EU membership treaty (fi), that are paid out of Finnish taxpayers' pockets to the farmers of southern Finland.

Because such subsidies distort intra-EU competition - which makes them a form of protectionism - Finland needs the EU's permission to keep paying them. It obtained a temporary permission when it entered the Union. That was 15 years ago and now the EU Commission is starting to wonder just how long will the farmers of southern Finland remain temporarily hampered by EU membership. Last year close to 100 million euros was paid out. The Commission wants to either eliminate the subsidies completely or at least reduce them significantly, e.g. by 20 percent.

The Centre Party is, as you would expect, going slightly nuts over the issue. Several senior Centrists, most notably ex-Prime Minister Esko Aho and parliamentary Agriculture and Forestry Committee chair Jari Leppä, have suggested that the issue be tied to the ratification of the not-a-constitution in order to show the EU that Finland means business. Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen is opposed and the odds of this happening are slight, but it speaks of the central importance of agricultural subsidies to Centrists.

In the press our Nordic neighbors Sweden and Denmark have been singled out as opponents of the 141 subsidies and Leppä wrote a letter (fi) to the Swedish parliament. In it he mentioned all sorts of reasons for why agriculture in Finland is dependent on subsidies, none of which seems to have anything to do with Finnish EU membership. He even brought up the war. Lest we forget, the stated rationale for the 141 subsidies was easing serious difficulties caused by joining the EU.

By contrast, the so-called 142 subsidies, which are paid out to farmers in northern Finland and account for well over half of all national agricultural subsidies, are pretty much permanent. If the 141 is done away with, will farming in Finland be concentrated in the north of the country? That would be a rather perverse outcome.

Migrant Integration Policy Index

The 2006 Migrant Integration Policy Index, "a handy quick-reference guide to migrant integration policies in Europe", is out now.

Finnish policies were judged "partially favorable" for integrating migrants, which was good enough for the BBC to name Finland a "top ranked nation for integration". Access to Finnish nationality was found to be the weak spot.

Subsidies and protectionism

In a radio interview today, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen opined (fi), "Of course a union of 27 member countries works on a different logic than a union of 15 member countries. In parts of the union changes have occurred in the logic of politics; protectionism is to some extent gaining ground in thinking, and that's in no way in Finland's interests."

The issue on which negotiations have been most difficult as of late is agricultural subsidies. Vanhanen as a Centrist defends them whereas many others in the EU want to cut them. In Vanhanen's mind, this shows that other countries don't want competition from Finnish agricultural produce. Defending subsidies naturally has nothing whatsoever to do with protectionism or national interest or any of those bad things.

Friday's Helsingin Sanomat had an article on some of the wrangling going on right now.

Deliberating on EU democracy

J Clive "Nosemonkey" Matthews is a editing dLiberation, a rather nice blog on democracy in the European Union. A particular focus is the upcoming Plan D Yahoo! Answers Tomorrow's Europe Deliberative Poll® on the EU's future. (Three of the 400 poll respondents are from Finland. Clearly we should have received a bigger quota at the expense of the most populous member states.)

Currently Matthews is considering William Hague's remark that national government is "the linchpin of democratic consent". I'll say this for Hague's notion: whenever the government and some EU organ disagree on a topic, it's damned easy to dismiss any democratic legitimacy the EU organ aspires to. After all, what sort of a democracy is it where a bunch of foreigners, even foreigners who vote in free and fair elections, get to tell us what to do?

To use a recent example, in the sugar tiff the decision came down from the EU Commission. Would the reaction had been any different, though, if the proposal had been passed by the EU Parliament after our MEPs voted against it? Probably not. Transferring powers to the EU Parliament is perhaps the most common solution to the EU's democratic deficit, but it's not going to help with the enterprise's image as long as the Parliament is liable to disagree with national entities that have greater democratic legitimacy in the eyes of EU citizens.

Happily the solution is obvious: what the EU needs to become more democratic is lots and lots of national vetoes.

Centre sour on EU sugar decision

Yesterday in Parliament, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen criticized the EU commission in unusually harsh terms:

[Vanhanen] strongly criticised the European commission for what he said was an unfair reform of sugar production in the EU.

Mr Vanhanen said during question time in the Finnish Parliament that the commission had failed to be impartial and to take into account Europe's diversity.

He added this would no doubt affect Finland's opinion of the commission.

Startlingly, the prime minister did not even attempt to dress the issue as some sort of defensive victory, saying point-blank that Finland had lost in the negotiations.

Vanhanen needed to show his displeasure with the decision just for the sake of party morale. Agricultural subsidies are a huge issue for the rural Centre Party rank-and-file.

Although I don't like the Centre's pro-subsidies position, on this particular question Vanhanen and Agricultural Minister Sirkka-Liisa Anttila (Centre), who was also very critical of the decision, have a point about fairness. Finnish farmers already cut sugar production by 40 percent during the previous phase of reform. Now farmers in other countries which didn't do what they were supposed to do are being rewarded with higher incentives to stop production.

Mr Stubb goes to Strasbourg

Further enhancing Alex Stubb's (National Coalition Party) status as the media darling of the Finnish MEPs, he has been guest blogging over at the Economist's site. After a couple of amusing day-in-the-life-of-a-MEP type of entries - here and here - on Wednesday he let his europhile flag fly. Predictably a heated discussion ensued in the comments section. Yesterday he wrote about his opposition to the current rules on taking liquids on planes. The dude is going places and he wants to take his liquids with him.

Commish Rehn's prospects

Recent signs point to Olli Rehn (Centre Party) continuing as Finland's EU Commissioner for the next term. Earlier this week Social Democratic Party chair Eero Heinäluoma said (fi) that his party is prepared to back Rehn, which means that Rehn shouldn't have trouble getting two of the big three to support his candidacy. He has been getting some good reviews and the calculation is that he might get a more important post than a less experienced candidate. I also have the impression that Rehn isn't seen as a particularly partisan figure, which makes his easier for the Social Democrats to swallow.

For some time now I've thought that Rehn has some of the qualities usually looked for in the President of Finland: experience relevant to leading Finnish foreign policy and a certain aura of broad acceptability. The downside is that he's a bit too liberal and pro-EU to have much of a constituency inside the Centre. He also isn't as well-known to the general public as some other prospective candidates like Speaker Sauli Niinistö (National Coalition Party). Starting another five-year term as Commissioner in 2009 would complicate the matter further, as the next presidential election will be in 2012. Nevertheless, if Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen doesn't want the Centre nomination, Rehn would be a fairly obvious alternative candidate for the Vanhanen camp to push.

To get a feel for Rehn's thinking, I've been reading his 2006 book on the EU, "Suomen eurooppalainen valinta" ("Finland's European Choice"), wherein he presents pro-EU arguments from several angles. For example, he sees Finland's current EU policy as a continuation of the active neutrality pursued during Urho Kekkonen's presidency. According to Rehn, Kekkonen's policy "involved an effort to build such an international system that it would restrain the great powers' aspirations for supremacy" and "to remove Europe's border fences and build security by opening doors." (Rehn's propensity for saying nice things about Centrist icon Kekkonen is the main tip-off that the book's author is a Centrist - aside from the obligatory chapter on the importance of agricultural subsidies, natch.)

On foreign policy matters, Rehn adopts a moderate if always pro-EU approach. He's very supportive of further EU enlargement, as you might expect, and generally wants the EU to use its "soft power" to advance all the usual nice things. He criticizes Russia's approach to the EU for trying to divide EU members for power political purposes and thus missing the opportunity for deeper cooperation, but is very conciliatory about it. He doesn't appear to be much of a fan of the Bush administration, faulting "the [American] hard right borne out of religious fundamentalism" for not properly appreciating the UN. On the other hand, he has mostly positive things to say about NATO, calling for more civilian and military cooperation between it and the EU.

Banging on about a referendum

As far as I can tell, there's no logic to this post in the Economist's EU blog. We are told:

To date, the best guess of British officials and politicians watching the referendum row is that Mr Brown will eventually get away without a national vote, for the reason that the Conservatives under Mr Cameron can only hammer away at the topic for so long but will then have to drop it. This is because Mr Cameron is determined to avoid the fate that dogged so many Tory leaders in recent years, of being defined by Europe. Banging on about a referendum, crudely, may chime with the specific views of British voters, if you invite them to think about the new EU treaty. But most British voters, much more importantly, do not want to think about the new EU treaty, or the EU at all. Their irritation with Europe is such that any party that talks about it, even to attack it, ends up incurring their wrath. That is what happened to the Conservatives under John Major, when any number of loons and bores on Europe became the public face of the party.

So if Labour doesn't consent to a referendum, they risk... the Conservatives screwing up their election campaign. Huh? Either campaigning for a referendum is an effective election strategy, in which case the threat of Cameron doing so would put pressure on Brown, or it's a losing proposition, in which case Brown should wish that Cameron take it.

Tiilikainen on the limits to a multi-speed EU

Teija Tiilikainen, the State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and one of the leading EU policy thinkers in the country, wrote a column (fi) on the EU in Turun Sanomat. The Finnish News Agency (STT) summarizes:

"It is not possible to take that many further steps from the current level of off-step without causing the EU as it stands today to disassemble and a wholly new system to arise," Ms Tiilikainen writes.

"Yet there has been no serious debate between member states over this radical change."

Ms Tiilikainen added that certain member states or groups of countries could continue to be allowed to proceed faster or slower in integration, but only on the condition that the bloc's "common decision-making and norm system" was not damaged.

"If however one is referring to a situation where the EU's current institutional makeup would crumble, in the name of realism one ought to sketch out the appearance of Europe after the tumult."

As examples of the current multi-speed system - presumably tolerable ones - Tiilikainen mentions the EMU, Schengen, and opt-outs for individual countries.

I'll note that Finland has opposed all sorts of multi-speed arrangements inside the EU and the government's thinking on the issue may be pretty close to the column. The argument of course cuts both ways: against laggards who want more opt-outs and against enthusiasts who'd like a nucleus to hurtle along the route to federalist nirvana.

Mihkelson's wedge

Marko Mihkelson, a conservative Estonian parliamentarian, has commented on President Tarja Halonen's upcoming visit to a Finno-Ugric folklore festival in Russia.

"The fact that the Russian president has invited the Finnish head of state and Hungarian prime minister, but not the Estonian head of state, to a Finno-Ugric festival in the Mordovian republic next week should be a clear signal to our partners in the European Union to turn down the invitation," Mr Mihkelson wrote in his blog, according to [the Baltic News Service].

Mr Mihkelson feels the Finnish and Hungarian leaders would undermine EU solidarity if they attended without the Estonian president.

"The Russian president has of course purposely left the Estonian president out of the list of invitees to see whether a wedge could be driven between Finland and Hungary and Tallinn."

The blog article is here in its entirety (ee). I don't understand Estonian with any reliability, so I'll comment only on the translated bits and pieces.

Undoubtedly Russia treats Finnish leaders differently than Estonian leaders and this festival invite is yet another sign of it. Nevertheless, it's difficult to see how the visit hurts Estonia. Consider what will happen. Will Halonen and Putin put out a joint statement to the effect that Estonians should never have moved that damn statue? Hardly. Will Halonen promise to support Russia against Estonia's interests inside the EU? I consider it unlikely. Halonen and Putin will probably discuss some bilateral issues between Finland and Russia. Halonen will say something suitably considered to express her concern over the treatment of Finno-Ugric minorities in Russia and Putin will give a bland response. The only effect all of it will have is that maybe, if we're lucky, the Mordvins and Mari will feel like they have friends abroad - friends who can't do much of anything to help them, but friends nevertheless.

As for EU solidarity, my understanding of the concept is that it's supposed to mainly apply in EU decision making, not in the bilateral relations between members and non-members. It can't really mean that if one EU country has poor relations with some country outside the EU, everyone is supposed to follow suit. To pick a hypothetical example, let's say that some leftist foreign minister with a peace sign on his lapel and a scraggly beard offends the Americans so that they refuse to have high level meetings with said lefty's bosses. Does that mean that Estonian leaders should refrain from meeting with Americans? I don't think so. You might argue that this is different because in some sense the Estonians should have been invited to tag along, but as far as I can see, there isn't a practical difference between attending this festival and any old meeting.

Opinion congruence on EU

I came across an interesting article titled "Cautious Voters - Supportive Parties: Opinion Congruence between Voters and Parties on the EU Dimension" (2006) by Mikko Mattila and Tapio Raunio. That parties in most EU countries are generally more pro-EU than voters shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but it's still useful to have a study to cite on the phenomenon. The authors conclude:

In line with previous research, we first showed that parties are closer to their voters on the left/right dimension than on the EU dimension. Then we confirmed that parties are more supportive of European integration than are their voters. We expected party system characteristics (number of parties, ideological range) to have an effect on opinion congruence, but this was clearly refuted by our analysis. The responsiveness analysis at the party level produced several findings: government parties were less responsive than opposition parties; party size was related to responsiveness, with opinion congruence higher in smaller parties; and responsiveness was lower among centrist parties. Our study also confirms that European parties, at least in the old member states, fail to offer enough competing alternatives to voters over European integration.

The article also contains a rather interesting by-country breakdown of the distances between parties and voters on the EU dimension and the left-right dimension, as measured in an international study after the previous European Parliament election. Finnish parties did a comparatively poor job of representing public opinion on EU; they were the fourth furthest from the voting public. British parties were the furthest from their supporters on this count, not including Northern Irish parties which were the closest. In two countries, Poland and the Czech Republic, parties were generally less pro-EU than the public. Finnish parties came fourth in being more pro-EU than their voters - with British parties winning again.

On the left/right dimension, where parties were generally closer to voters, Finnish parties were slightly better than average, tied at ninth place with Irish, Estonian, and Cypriot parties. Northern Irish and Dutch parties did the best, Portuguese the worst.

EU deal reaction

I think it's fair to say that the EU summit deal has gotten a fairly muted, if mostly positive response among Finnish leaders. Politicians tend to express satisfaction that few substantial changes were made while noting that the solution wasn't very pretty. Preventing any sort of excitement is that the eventual treaty looks sure to pass in the Finnish Parliament. The original draft constitution passed, after all, and this one will in all likelihood contain almost all the same things merely expressed in a more convoluted manner. Some Social Democrats, e.g. Erkki Tuomioja in his usual manner in the linked article and President Tarja Halonen in a more veiled form at the summit, have criticized Britain for opting out of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, but nothing indicates that they'll oppose the treaty.