Bildt on Nordic defense cooperation

YLE reports (fi) that Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt (se) said that defense cooperation between Finland, Norway, and Sweden meets the new types of soft security challenges better than NATO membership. Bildt raised the possibility of also inviting other countries on the Baltic. (Bildt expressed frustration about being unable to find information on the Foreign Ministry's NATO report in languages other than Finnish. Not an aLwNGL reader, obviously.)

Noted NATO membership supporter and parliamentary foreign policy committee chair Pertti Salolainen (National Coalition Party) was asked for comment. He agreed with Bildt on the Nordic approach, but expressed some reservation about including the Baltic countries. Salolainen also admitted a basic fact: "Now it's pretty clear that during this parliamentary term and during this presidency we won't be joining NATO." True, that.

Noted NATO membership opponent and President of the Republic Tarja Halonen (Social Democratic Party) was likewise asked for comment. She, too, agreed (fi). "[Bildt] said that with regards to these new security risks, Nordic cooperation may even be more important than membership in some alliance. With this in mind one can say that he's thinking along Finnish lines. To kid a little, it's nice that Swedes too join in this thinking." The difference to Salolainen was that Halonen was less reserved on the idea of including the Baltic states, mentioning that there have already been talks on cooperation.

The point to grasp here is that Nordic defense cooperation is so inoffensive that both sides of the Finnish foreign policy debate can embrace. A cynic would say this is true because it wouldn't make much of a difference to anything, new threats or no new threats. But it's still nice.

Minorities in China are treated better

The Swedish news site The Local carries a wacky AFP article on the ol' language question. (You can tell that the author is French by the way Arto Paasilinna is quoted in the end.) The problem with discussing the topic is that the world is neatly divided into people who don't care and people who care a bit too much. This article tries to bring a smidgen of heat to the proceedings by only quoting the latter.

"Finland tries to teach everyone a lesson about morality but minorities in China are treated better," blasted Juhan [sic] Janhunen, an expert on Asian languages, comparing one of the most egalitarian countries in the world to the Communist regime.

On the other hand, the majority in China is treated worse, so it evens out.

And as a result of budgetary cutbacks, Swedish-speaking police stations, courts and municipal offices will in the coming years be integrated into Finnish entities.

"It's scandalous! We don't even know who was here first, the Swedes or the Finns," thunders a judge, Charles Lindroos, whose court is due to close.

The Sami may have been there first, but it totally doesn't count because our ancestors weren't playing for keepsies back then.

Heikki Tala, the head of the Association for Finnish Culture and Identity, doesn't see a problem.

"Swedish speakers enjoy privileges like no other linguistic minority in the world," he said.

"The 500,000 Finns in Sweden have no rights," he pointed out.

That's not strictly true. For example, while you're allowed to enslave Sweden-dwelling Finns, you must ensure that there's no gender discrimination among your slave force.

Headline of the day

Helsingin Sanomat (fi): "Swedish porn parody of Dallas is funny only at times". Hard to believe.

(Alas, the article is just a quick a theater review.)

Comparative study of Finnish and Swedish cultures

A study (fi) by Thorleif Pettersson and Sakari Nurmela, titled "Eri tapoja kohdata suuri elefantti - Suomalaisen ja ruotsalaisen kulttuurin vertaileva tutkimus" ("Different Ways of Meeting a Big Elephant - A Comparative Study of Finnish and Swedish Cultures") got some press (fi) a while back. I would have posted something on the topic sooner, but at first I couldn't find a link to the study, and then the Jokela shootings interfered.

Using World Values Survey data as evidence, the study concludes that Finns are more conservative than Swedes. Then again, so are pretty much everyone else; the numbers point to Swedish exceptionalism. For example, Swedes' attitudes toward democracy are the most positive of any country in the survey by some distance, whereas Finland is close to several other liberal democracies. The study concludes that the liberal Swedes are guided to a greater extent by principles, whereas the conservative Finns are more pragmatic.

In addition to the World Values Survey figures, the researchers carried out a survey of their own that concentrated on bilateral issues between the two countries, such as what do Finns and Swedes know of and feel about each other. In the trivia part of the questionnaire, respondents were given three options in each question. We find, for example, that five percent of Finns thought The Who was Swedish, whereas only three percent of Swedes thought it was Finnish. Nevertheless Finns were judged to have slightly better knowledge of Sweden than Swedes of Finland.

The headline grabber of the study was the finding that Swedes were friendlier toward Finns than vice versa. 81 percent of Swedes agreed strongly or in part with the statement, "I would like to have a Finn as a close friend." When Finns were asked about having a Swedish friend, the figure dropped to 32 percent. The authors present the possibility that Finnish and Swedish respondents understood the statement differently. I would also consider the possibility that Swedes can be a bit annoying, what with their democracy and hockey team that wins tournaments and famous rock band The Who.

Soini doesn't like the Sweden Democrats

YLE has a little snippet (fi) on its website about True Finns chair Timo Soini's attempts to keep some distance between his party and anti-immigrant parties in other Nordic countries. The True Finns' youth organization tried and failed to gain entry into the Nordic Youth Council together with Swedish and Danish right-wing populist parties. Soini disapproved of this and the youth organization announced that it intends to stop the cooperation. YLE doesn't name the other parties, but according to (fi) the Nordic Council's website, they are the Sweden Democrats and the Danish People's Party.

Persson fears Lipponen

The former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson tells in his memoirs (fi) of a brush with death at a 1998 European Union meeting in Cardiff, Wales.

"During a break in the line to the bathroom, the big Lipponen was in front of me. He was angry. Lipponen was furious; he literally radiated anger. I had probably said something in my statement that didn't suit him and Finland.

"Lipponen turned toward me and said in a low, clear voice, stressing every syllable, which is why his speech is always unbearably slow, 'You better watch out!'

"It felt very awkward, but just in that blink of an eye the bathroom door opened and out stepped a happy Mandela. He looked at me and Paavo, greeted us affably, and we exchanged a few words."

Nelson Mandela's timely intervention defused the situation and saved the rotund Persson's hide.

I have two comments on this:

First, given Lipponen's well-publicized new driver's license, if Persson is hit by a car with Finnish license plates and the culprit flees the scene, we know whose alibi to check first. Persson thinks they've patched up their differences, which just goes to show how much he knows.

Second, Mandela really deserved that Nobel Peace Prize.

Nurses' pay demands

This is bound to cause palpitations in certain quarters:

[The general council of the Finnish Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (Tehy)] decided that the union aimed at an extra 15-per cent wage increase on top of the average pay rises secured by other unions.

The negotiation aim translates into raises of between 400 and 600 euros in monthly wages over the 30-month agreement period.

If there isn't plenty of negotiating room in those figures, I fear we're going to have a long, long strike. The demands are close to twice as large as the offer that was turned down.

Tehy is threatening with mass resignations in the middle of this month. How many nurses out of Tehy's 125'000 members would be involved is unclear; Tehy's chair commented in Verkkouutiset (fi) that even a few hundred resignations would have an effect. Unlike nurses on strike, those who resign aren't obliged to take care of patients who need urgent medical aid.

In the interest of balance (and with thanks to Egan for the link), here's an article comparing nurses' pay and working conditions in Finland and Sweden:

Five years ago Vaarala left Meilahti Hospital in Helsinki for Södersjukhuset in Stockholm. Her basic pay without extras shot up by nearly EUR 800. Like Meilahti, Södersjukhuset is a public sector hospital , and Vaarala did the same work in both facilities, as a nurse assisting in surgery.

"The pay was partially responsible for my move, but the greatest reason was that only fixed term jobs were available in Finland then. In Sweden I got a permanent post right away.

According to the article, Swedish nurses have seen their pay increase quickly in recent years due to a shortage of qualified personnel combined with more room for local pay negotiations, i.e. individual hospitals have been competing for available nurses so they've had to jack up their wage offers.

Non-allied Sweden

Occasionally Finnish NATO boosters warn of the consequences of Sweden joining NATO while Finland stays out. Our neighbors to the west are seriously thinking about it so we should too, is the general suggestion. Earlier in the week, apropos of Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt leaving out the word "non-allied" from the foreign policy section of a speech, Jacob Christensen had this to say on the topic:

Sweden hasn't been in any military alliance since - well - time immemorial and joining an alliance has been a complete no-no in Swedish politics since 1945. As a leading politician, you're not even supposed to declare that you are not considering joining NATO because just making such a statement would endanger Sweden's non-aligned status. On the other hand, according to critics and political opponents, failing to make the ritual confession to non-alliance amounts to endorsing some kind of military cooperation with - the horror, the horror - NATO.

[...] Sweden isn't a member of NATO and in the real world, NATO membership isn't even a non-issue on the political agenda.

Based on that description, it seems that Finnish politicians, at least on the right, more openly support NATO membership than their Swedish counterparts do. In Finland there are many leading politicians, including several ministers, whose NATO position is that they're personally in favor of membership, but consider joining to be politically unfeasible at this time. I wonder if such beasts exist within Sweden's centre-right government.

Stasi again

Helsingin Sanomat reports (fi) that the Supreme Police Command is to inspect the Security Police's Stasi material. By the sound of things, the inspection will focus on how the Security Police used the information at its disposal in its investigations.

That's good in itself, but it doesn't really address the main issue in the Rosenholz affair. Let's face it: the material isn't terribly important. Similar information on KGB activities in Finland would be a different matter, but these Stasi operations are small time in comparison.

The main issue, as I see it, is that the government told the Security Police to do something, which then wasn't done. The big question is why not. Did the Security Police behave correctly? If it should have acted differently, was the mistake intentional?

PS: How come Swedish Stasi informants get BBC coverage whereas Finnish ones have to make do with local media attention? Damned Swedes...

Government priorities and ratings

Earlier this week Helsingin Sanomat published a poll (fi) asking what are the most important goals for the new government. Below are the percentages of respondents who found the goal either the most important or the second most important.

1. securing welfare services 49 (most important 31 + second most important 18)
2. reducing poverty and social inequality 38 (22 + 16)
3. restraining climate change and environmental protection 28 (12 + 18)
4. preparing for the population's aging 28 (11 + 17)
5. fighting unemployment 25 (11 + 14)
6. lowering taxes 15 (7 + 8)
7. taking care of national defense capability 6 (2 + 4)
8. fighting crime and terrorism 5 (1 + 4)
9. can't say 4 (2 + 2)
10. something else 3 (2 + 1)

I've written this before, but it bears repeating: the election result should not be taken as a green light from the electorate to dismantle the welfare state. Such moves would not be received well, in all likelihood. (On that note, Jacob Christensen wrote a series of posts on the "instant failure" of the centre-right government in Sweden that can serve as a warning example: part 1, part 2, and part 3.)

So far the public seems reasonably pleased with what they're getting. In the same poll respondents were asked to grade parties and Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party). Here are the percentages of respondents who thought the entity had succeeded either quite well or very well in its tasks.

1. Matti Vanhanen 82 (very well 18 + quite well 64)
2. government 69 (5 + 64)
3. Centre Party 64 (5 + 59)
4. National Coalition Party 61 (7 + 54)
5. Green League 48 (3 + 45)
6. Swedish People's Party 46 (2 + 44)
7. True Finns 43 (6 + 37)
8. Social Democratic Party 37 (3 + 34)
9. Christian Democrats 35 (2 + 33)
10. Left Alliance 27 (1 + 26)

Conclusion: while Vanhanen is significantly more popular than the government he leads, the government is popular enough that opposition parties consistently rank below government parties in approval.

Metal mania

Sweden sets a troubling precedent (link spotted at Hit & Run):

A Swedish heavy metal fan has had his musical preferences officially classified as a disability. The results of a psychological analysis enable the metal lover to supplement his income with state benefits.

Thing is, Finland has already seen six metal number one albums in 2007. A recent album chart (fi) contained no less than ten Metallica albums (due to them visiting the country for a gig), the top two were local power-metallers Sonata Arctica and some guy named Ozzy Osbourne, plus I counted four other metal acts in the top 40. The question needs to be asked: if the Swedish policy spreads over the Gulf of Bothnia, how will the Finnish welfare state survive?

NP: Mokoma, "Lujaa tekoa"

Examining Swedish models

Economics professor Assar Lindbeck wrote an interesting column about the three different Swedish economic models. (Link spotted at bookforum.com.) It should appeal to the sort of people who like to argue that the welfare state stifles economic growth.

According to Lindbeck, 1870-1960 was a "liberal" period. The government provided market-supporting legislation, education, health care, and infrastructure, but government spending and income distribution were similar to the United States. During this period Sweden "moved from being one of the poorest western countries to being the third richest country in terms of GDP per capita."

1960-1985 saw the system that is usually called the Swedish model. The free trade of the liberal period remained, but job security was improved and generous welfare policies were implemented. Government spending as a percentage of GDP doubled and marginal tax rates went up. Sweden's GPD growth lagged behind the rich OECD countries and it dropped from third to approximately 17th in GDP per capita.

In the third period, 1985 to date, marginal tax rates were cut, capital market regulations and foreign-exchange controls were removed, and several product markets were deregulated. Sweden's growth rate picked up again and it has recovered some of the ground it lost to other rich countries in 1960-1985.

One reservation I had about Lindbeck's use of statistics is that the first liberal period also coincided with Sweden missing a couple of big wars in which many other rich countries fought. It would be interesting to know how much that helped in moving up the GDP-per-capita list. Also, presumably Sweden would have industrialized around that time in just about any case, so a rather large part of the growth can't be attributed to the government's approach to spending and income distribution.

Stratfor on Finnish and Swedish NATO prospects

Stratfor, a well-known private security consulting intelligence agency, has published an article of Finland's and Sweden's approach to NATO. The direct link asks you to register, but you can access it without registering by going through Google News.

The aspect I found most interesting is their analysis of Finland's and Sweden's motives. For Finland, they write, joining NATO would be a way to obtain closer political ties to Western Europe. For Sweden, it would be a way to remain a regional power. I partly disagree with their assessment on Finland. It's true that a common refrain from Finnish NATO enthusiast is that Finland needs to be represented in all the clubs through which Western powers cooperate. However, that argument alone isn't good enough. "But mom, everyone else is doing it!" just isn't very convincing. There needs to be a consensus - if not among the people, at least among the leaders of the big parties and the president - that joining will improve Finland's security.

The article notes that Finland and Sweden have agreed to consult each other before taking the step to join. This, according to Stratfor, raises the possibility that "Finland would not join NATO unless Sweden does as well". That is going a bit too far, I think. The idea is not that either side has veto over the other's security policy, but that any decision one country makes will not come as a surprise to the other. It's possible, for example, that Finland joining will push Sweden to do likewise. Giving advance warning of such intentions is beneficial for long-term planning.

PS: Stratfor says Sweden has "a stellar defense program". What's that, the Finnish military? (Zing!)