Boring budget debate

The Parliament is debating the budget and YLE televised several hours worth of it yesterday. It wasn't pretty. The Finnish News Agency reports a small detail:

A fire alarm rang out in the middle of the preliminary budget debate. Paavo Arhinmäki (left) quipped that the alarm had been triggered because "so many election promises are being burned".

Good one, Paavo.

But really, there was extremely little that was newsworthy in the debate. Both sides are repeating things they've been saying ever since Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen presented the draft budget.

The opposition is still very invested in the idea that the National Coalition Party and party chair Katainen in particular have broken election promises, e.g. the one about improving nurses' pay. The problem with their case is that the government is in fact offering to give money to improve pay equality pretty much according to the scheme the Coalition outlined before the election.

Making the opposition's flailing all the more frustrating to watch is that the Coalition's scheme hasn't worked out well in practice. Alas, since the Social Democrats bought into it before the election, now they're apparently unwilling to offer a critique of the idea itself. (I'd elaborate, but I'm hoping to get another post out of the topic when the interpellation vote is held.)

Social Democrats' summer meeting

Earlier this week the Social Democratic Party gathered for a party conference. The main thing to take away from the event is that they're very critical of the 2008 draft budget.

Eero Heinäluoma, the chairman of Finland's Social Democratic party, said Tuesday that the draft budget penned by Jyrki Katainen (cons), the finance minister, would widen inequality and undermine the prerequisites for growth.

Speaking at the opposition party's summer meeting in Hämeenlinna, Mr Heinäluoma added Mr Katainen's proposal to raise taxes and charges would be a heavy blow to groups like the unemployed and those on employment pension.

The former finance minister also faulted his successor's first draft budget, unveiled in full on Friday, of boosting inflation.

Heinäluoma claimed that on average taxes and service charges would go up by 200 euros per household. I have no idea about the veracity of that claim. It's funny that before the election the National Coalition Party and the Centre Party were arguing for tax breaks and the Social Democrats insisted that money should go toward improving services. Now the former are raising taxes and the latter is complaining about it.

Heinäluoma also mentioned (fi) the possibility of an interpellation if the government doesn't set aside money in the 2008 budget to improve pay equality. Left Alliance chairman Matti Korhonen said (fi) that his party is prepared to support such an interpellation - not that it has any chance of succeeding, mind you.

Who wants to go to Darfur?

Green League leader and Labour Minister Tarja Cronberg wonders (fi) why Finland says it can't send peacekeepers to Darfur because of insufficient resources, but the same argument is not applied when the talk turns to sending more peacekeepers to Afghanistan. Cronberg writes, "The fact that only Afghanistan seems to be a serious alternative strengthens the impression that Finland's decision too have other basis than ending human suffering. The United States pressures Finland to increase its effort in Afghanistan, not in Darfur."

Other government sources are sending mixed signals. When the UN Security Council made the decision on the Darfur operation, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party) said (fi) that Finnish participation was unlikely. An official from the Ministry of Defense said that taking part would require that the Finnish contingent in some other operation would be reduced. Defense Minister Kari Häkämies (National Coalition Party) has speculated before that the EU's Nordic battle group may be heading Sudan way.

No doubt there's a certain value in completing previous commitments before taking on new ones, but Cronberg has a point when she argues that on humanitarian grounds peacekeepers could do more good in Sudan than Afghanistan. Whether Finnish peacekeepers in specific are needed for the Darfur operation to succeed isn't entirely clear to me, though.

Left Alliance party secretary Sirpa Puhakka has also demanded that Finland take part in the Darfur operation. It's interesting that the Greens and Leftists seem eager to send peacekeepers to Darfur. Traditionally neither party has been overly enthusiastic about foreign interventions.

Rosenholz affair reactions

As you would expect, the papers are full of the Rosenholz affair today. YLE News provides a round-up of reactions:

National Police Commissioner Markku Salminen told YLE Friday that he is considering if the Interior Ministry should take an active lead and publish the information which it can release. However, he pointed out that the materials in the possession of the Security Police are its responsibility and the Ministry cannot make a decision about release on its behalf. [...]

[Interior Minister Anne Holmlund] says that her September schedule includes time to better familiarize herself with SUPO activities and at that time she will likely have talks on matters related to the issue.

The Interior Minister is taking the position that increased parliamentary oversight of the Security Police can be taken under consideration, but she has also noted that it has to be remembered that some of the information held by SUPO is such that it cannot be published. [...]

The Office of the President Chief of Staff Jarmo Viinanen on Friday denied the Aamulehti report claiming that the Security Police had misled President Halonen.

Minister of Interior Holmlund also said Friday that she has not received any misleading information from the Security Police.

President Halonen said on Thursday that she hopes that any cover-up surrounding the Stasi materials affair would come to an end. She said that the materials should be made available, at least to the extent that there can be no claims of secrecy.

It seems to me that the contention that the Security Police (Supo) hasn't acted inappropriately is based on a very fine distinction indeed. The assertion is that Supo's material is not the same as the Rosenholz files that per government policy should have been made accessible, even though Supo has admitted that the relevant content is the same. One might get away with that argument in a purely legal discussion, but in a political debate it's not likely to work too well and I'm surprised that Holmlund is trying it.

The obvious question to Halonen is, if Supo hasn't misinterpreted the Cabinet's 2000 decision and was thus correct to withhold the information up this point, why is it not correct to keep withholding it? Now, in 2007, Halonen thinks the material Supo does have should be released - based on what exactly? If Supo wasn't wrong previously, has government policy now changed?

Helsingin Sanomat carries an interview with Professor Seppo Hentilä (fi), an expert on the Cold War era, who makes some good points. "Supo has no option but to make the information public. In 2000 it was decided that the information must be given to three entities, judicial officials, scholars of history, and concerned parties. There's no need for a permission for the Rosenholz key from the CIA. In Germany and Denmark the corresponding information is already in use." (In the same article, Supo assistant chief Matti Simola says he suspects that a permission from the United States would be needed.)

Hentilä suggests that Supo should give the material to an independent group of researchers and lawyers, which in turn would report to the Parliament. He says that the situation won't be resolved if Supo's actions are checked only by other officials, which I take as criticism of Holmlund's approach.

Speaking of which, Aamulehti contacted opposition leaders (fi), who weren't very positive in their assessment of Holmlund's response to the revelations. Timo Soini (True Finns) used the phrase "miserable monkeying around". Eero Heinäluoma (Social Democratic Party) took a slightly more measured tone: "It's justifiable that Holmlund should clarify for the Parliament what has happened. The report should tell what material has come to Finland and what sort of right-of-access principles have been applied to them." Matti Korhonen (Left Alliance) was the only one to bring up resignation at this point.

How Norman Podhoretz gets Finlandization wrong

...or, Remembering Finland's "red Vichy" regime.

Some weeks ago Norman Podhoretz, one of those American conservative commentators who aren't truly happy unless they're advocating aggressive military action, wrote an article in which he explained how it's vital to bomb Iran in order to win the War on Islam. (Link spotted at European Tribune.) In the middle of the article, he presented some deep thoughts on the subject of Finlandization. It's strange, strange stuff for anyone familiar with the history of Finland.

At certain points in that earlier war, some of us feared that the Soviets might seize control of the oil fields of the Middle East, and that the West, faced with a choice between surrendering to their dominance or trying to stop them at the risk of a nuclear exchange, would choose surrender. In that case, we thought, the result would be what in those days went by the name of Finlandization.

In Europe, where there were large Communist parties, Finlandization would take the form of bringing these parties to power so that they could establish "red Vichy" regimes like the one already in place in Finland--regimes whose subservience to the Soviet will in all things, domestic and foreign alike, would make military occupation unnecessary and would therefore preserve a minimal degree of national independence.

Claims of total subservience are preposterous and comparisons to Vichy France are offensive, but it may be worth pointing out that Communists in Finland never established a regime. The closest they got was the Pekkala government of 1946-1948. The Finnish People's Democratic League, an electoral front combining the Communist Party and some small socialist organizations, contributed six ministers out of 18. The most notable People's Democrats in the government were Prime Minister Mauno Pekkala, a socialist who had earned a modicum of trust by serving as a minister during two wars against the Soviet Union, and Interior Minister Yrjö Leino, a Communist who took orders from Moscow and filled the security police with Communists. The infamous Hertta Kuusinen, daughter of the even more infamous Otto Wille Kuusinen, also served briefly as a minister. Even during that period their power was limited and fragile, dependent as it was on the support of such decidedly non-communist entities as the Agrarian League, the Social Democratic Party, and the conservative President J.K. Paasikivi, who also remained in charge of the country's foreign policy. Leino was eventually turfed out of the government for his abuses and by the end of the following year, nothing remained of his security police appointments.

That was the post-war zenith of Finnish Communism, but Podhoretz can't be talking about the Pekkala government. Aside from the fact that the term "Finlandization" didn't exist yet, in his scenario there was a threat of nuclear war. The Soviet Union didn't have nukes until 1949, at which time the Communists were already in the middle of an 18 years long opposition stint. I suspect, based on his previous works, that he's instead thinking of the period between Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and Ronald Reagan's inauguration in 1981, which further heightens the absurdity of his views. The People's Democrats were in power in the sense that they were a junior partner, with three ministers out of 17, in a government based on the Social Democratic Party and the Centre Party. The Prime Minister was Mauno Koivisto, a moderate Social Democrat, an ex-banker, and a veteran of the Continuation War - the last was considered a selling point, mind you. The President was still Urho Kekkonen, by now in the end stage of his long reign as his health deteriorated and Koivisto was showing signs of independent thought. Consensus politics was officially in effect; the left had given up on nationalization and the right had given up on opposing Kekkonen.

For the Communists, things were looking down during this period. After being in the opposition for nearly two decades, eventually they were brought back to government in 1966 and for the most part remained there till the 1980s. Nevertheless, their influence was permanently on the wane. Cabinets contained about three People's Democrats, four at most, and they held relatively insignificant portfolios like social affairs, transport, or labor. Just as significantly, in the 1960s the Communist Party divided into two camps between Eurocommunists and Stalinist hardliners loyal to the Soviet Union and by the end of the decade, the Eurocommunists had gained the upper hand. The party even condemned the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, which wasn't a very subservient thing to do. For a while, at the turn of the decade, the Stalinists were highly visible in academia and arts, but in politics they never grew very powerful. In the 1979 parliamentary elections the People's Democrats lost five seats, down to 35 seats out of 200, although the real collapse wouldn't come till the next election in 1983. (In contrast, the right-wing National Coalition Party was doing great, gaining 12 seats in 1979.)

In the United States, where there was no Communist Party to speak of, we speculated that Finlandization would take a subtler form. In the realm of foreign affairs, politicians and pundits would arise to celebrate the arrival of a new era of peace and friendship in which the Cold War policy of containment would be scrapped, thus giving the Soviets complete freedom to expand without encountering any significant obstacles. And in the realm of domestic affairs, Finlandization would mean that the only candidates running for office with a prayer of being elected would be those who promised to work toward a sociopolitical system more in harmony with the Soviet model than the unjust capitalist plutocracy under which we had been living.

This sounds more like the actual phenomenon known as Finlandization than what Podhoretz described earlier, but it still goes too far. By the end of the period of Finlandization, Finland's sociopolitical system resembled those of NATO countries like Denmark and Norway far more than the Soviet model. Finlandization was centered on maintaining the foreign policy status quo and, later, keeping Kekkonen in power - the latter was supposed to guarantee the former, the argument went. One's sociopolitical opinions were tertiary at best compared to one's support for those twin goals, although it's true that dissent to Kekkonen's rule mainly came from the right. Certainly support for Soviet-style socialism was never a requirement for being Finlandized. To the contrary, Finlandization's chief selling point for many was that it allowed the country to avoid anything resembling the Soviet model.

Of course, by the grace of God, the dissidents behind the Iron Curtain and Ronald Reagan, we won World War III and were therefore spared the depredations that Finlandization would have brought. Alas, we are far from knowing what the outcome of World War IV will be. But in the meantime, looking at Europe today, we already see the unfolding of a process analogous to Finlandization: it has been called, rightly, Islamization. Consider, for example, what happened when, only a few weeks ago, the Iranians captured 15 British sailors and marines and held them hostage. Did the Royal Navy, which once boasted that it ruled the waves, immediately retaliate against this blatant act of aggression, or even threaten to do so unless the captives were immediately released? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, using force was the last thing in the world the British contemplated doing, as they made sure to announce. Instead they relied on the "soft power" so beloved of "sophisticated" Europeans and their American fellow travelers.

Comparing Finlandization to "Islamization" like Podhoretz does is entirely useless. You can't draw any lessons because the power dynamic is completely different. Finlandization featured a small country with a long border trying to cope with its difficult geopolitical situation as best as it could. In Podhoretz's outlandish concept of "Islamization", Iran, a regional power even if equipped with nukes, by sheer force of will brings to heel distant entities a lot bigger and militarily more powerful than it is. The example of British sailors captured by Iran is something which would have never happened if Britain was "Islamized" (no, I'm not going to use the term without scare quotes), because in any dynamic approximating Finlandization, the two sides will not be openly hostile to each other. After all, if Finlandization doesn't placate the other side, there's no incentive to remain Finlandized.

But hey, at least Podhoretz was spot on about English schools "dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils". Oh, wait.

Bunch of dirty hippies charged over Smash ASEM

86 smelly troublemakers, including Left Alliance vice chairman Paavo Arhinmäki MP and a press photographer from the Suomen Kuvalehti magazine, have been charged for offenses allegedly committed during last autumn's Smash ASEM demonstration. "Charges range from violent rioting, violent resistance against an official, illegal use of a mask, as well as weapons offences."

The prosecutor is worried (fi) about where he's going to find a big enough courtroom to fit all the unkempt defendants: "Certainly, the Helsinki Court House has spaces large enough to accommodate all of the [filthy dropouts]. However, these spaces are not actual courtrooms." We can only hope that the justice system is able to sort it out.

24 of the unhygienic punks may face a suspended prison sentence, but the rest of the scruffy anarchists risk only a fine. Arhinmäki and the photographer are among the latter. Arhinmäki wrote about the charges on his blog (fi); the phrases "show trial" and "political display" were mentioned. He also linked to a video of his arrest. He wanders into the frame about one minute from the end, wearing a grungy Adidas jacket and wielding a camera phone.

Seriously, though, I hope that the Suomen Kuvalehti photographer is acquitted. If you announce publicly that you and your friends will gather in the city centre to do some damage, as the would-be ASEM smashers did, you're liable to receive some close police attention. Nevertheless, the photographer had a good reason to remain at the scene even after the police told onlookers to leave. Members of the media should be able to document demonstrations like this without being fined.

Will someone please think of the Great Cormorants?

The Parliament has been debating (fi) the new government program. The discussion is largely ritualistic; the government naturally defends all aspects of its program and the opposition is stridently opposed to everything. There are things to be learned, though.

For example, I got the strong impression that the Social Democratic Party and other opposition parties doubt the government's ability to carry out the National Coalition Party's promise (fi) to financially support income equality in comprehensive incomes policy agreements. The Coalitionists, for their part, seem fairly confident; neither Finance Minister and party chairman Jyrki Katainen nor parliamentary faction chairman Pekka Ravi shirked away from stating that they're going through with the plan if the negotiating parties cooperate.

Another telling moment was when Left Alliance parliamentary faction chairwoman Annika Lapintie charged the government parties with condoning the slaughter of Great Cormorants. As a sop to the Swedish People's Party, whose coast-dwelling supporters come to contact with the birds more often than most Finns, the government program mentions (fi) limiting the number of Great Cormorants. Lapintie's critique is not pointed at the Swedish PP, however, but rather at the Green League. The Left Alliance seem to have identified the Greens as a potentially rewarding target and have embraced the sellout angle. Agreeing to the slaughter of the noble Great Cormorants fits the bill nicely.

What's important? II

Previously I dealt with the government parties. This one's dedicated to the loyal opposition. As previously, the data comes from Vaalit ja demokratia Suomessa by Heikki Paloheimo et al. In a 2003 survey respondents were asked how important they considered 30 different possible political issues to be. Then the authors calculated how the answers correlated with party support.

Social Democratic Party

Social Democrats are, perhaps surprisingly to some right-wingers, very close to the political centre on most issues. There are very few goals which they rate much higher or lower than the average voter does. When everything is taken together, however, the picture becomes clearer.

The one goal Social Democrats think is clearly more important than the average voter is:

• Securing the level of public services

To anyone who has listened to Social Democratic leaders' rhetoric, this shouldn't come as a huge surprise.

A few rungs of the ladder down, we find:

• Decreasing unemployment
• Strengthening the integration of the European Union
• Securing the level of health care and medical care

The EU thing may surprise some, but at the time the party was led by the noted europhile Paavo Lipponen.

Of goals Social Democrats find less important than the rest, only one really stands out:

• Improving the conditions of entrepreneurship

Maybe that's the party's labor union wing talking.

Social Democrats can compete with Centre Party supporters for the title of the most centrist lot fairly evenly, but they are nevertheless noticeably centre-left. Emphasizing the importance of government-provided services seems to be the defining characteristic, the one issue on which they stand out.

If it's somewhat difficult to find the defining characteristics of Social Democrats, analyzing the other opposition parties doesn't pose the same problem. All four stand out, but in very different ways.

Left Alliance

The two big issues Leftists find more important than the average voter is:

• Improving the status of poor people
• Securing the level of health care and medical care

Slightly less significant, but still good predictors of Leftist leanings, are:

• Improving the income of the unemployed
• Securing the level of care for the elderly

It's pretty safe to say that Leftists support an interventionist government which helps the needy. The notable feature is emphasis on support for the poor and the unemployed, not only the sick and the old.

There are also a number of goals they think are significantly less important than the average voter:

• Cutting taxes
• Reducing crime
• Increasing discipline and order in society
• Improving the conditions of entrepreneurship

And rock bottom, as befits an ex-communist party:

• Strengthening religious values

In effect, Leftists are the anti-Coalitionists. The topics on which the two are on the same side of the centre are few and often they're at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

Christian Democrats

Christian Democrats have one overarching concern, which shouldn't be too difficult to guess. Yes, it's...

• Strengthening religious values

The positive correlation between supporting Christian Democrats and finding strengthening religious values important is in fact the biggest of any party/issue correlation in the survey, comfortably beating out even Greens' emphasis on increasing the efficiency of environmental protection.

The two other big issues for Christian Democrats are:

• Strengthening traditional values and moral beliefs
• Increasing foreign development aid

Both flow fairly naturally from the Christian angle.

Compared to the above three issues, in everything else Christian Democrats are fairly close to the political centre. There are some issues they don't find as important as the average voter, like:

• Decreasing differences in regional development
• Strengthening the integration of the European Union

But these are not the issues that drive the party's support. Promoting socially conservative, Christian values is the important thing.

True Finns

Unsurprisingly, True Finns have a number of issues on which they stand out.

• Reducing crime
• Increasing discipline and order in society
• Limiting foreign workers' entry into the country
• Improving living conditions
• Limiting refugees' entry into the country

Conclusion: they live in crime-ridden concrete suburbs and hate foreigners.

As supporters of a party that largely defines itself by its opposition to things, True Finns are also well defined by the things they find less important than the average voter:

• Improving the status of poor people
• Strengthening the integration of the European Union
• Improving the status of racial or other minorities
• Improving the status of families with children
• Increasing the efficiency of environmental protection

I was surprised by the lack of emphasis on improving the status of poor people, as I recall seeing demographic data which indicated that True Finn voters are less wealthy than the average Finn. Maybe they see "poor people" as code for "refugees". In general, party supporters don't share the right-wing economic goals of e.g Coalitionists, but also reject a number of left-wing goals. The picture is one of an isolationist, authoritarian, contrarian bunch.