<TITLE: Politics Seminar 1
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: social sciences
DISCIPLINE: political science
EVENT TYPE: seminar presentation
FILE ID: USEMP01B
NOTES: continuation of and continued in USEMD01A, seminar also includes presentations USEMP01A/C

RECORDING DURATION: 22 min 20 sec

RECORDING DATE: 27.11.2001

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 11

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 2

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 51-over

S6: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: German; ACADEMIC ROLE: undergraduate; GENDER: male; AGE: 24-30

SU: unidentified speaker

SS: several simultaneous speakers>


<S6> so erm i'm not going talk about security policy i will talk about finland finland's behaviour er joining the EU which is quite erm an interesting topic to me i suppose so erm , because it's been quite remarkable to like to introduce the the subject we all know that er finland joined the EU er the first of january 95 and will be a full scale member of or is a full scale member of the european monetary union which will start erm in about a month and will be the first EMU country actually by one hour being the first the the most eastern country in the EU and er it's remarkable because within less than a decade after the er the diminishing of the soviet union er finland developed from a co- from a country non-allied and er pretty much with close connections to the soviet union to a full scale european union member erm one might say an ideal member erm also because er the way finland got in through the negotiations and erm also afterwards was therefore remarkable because finland made a lot of concessions and had hardly any demands er so er for example er paavo väyrynen said finland will be a paragon member of the community he said this before finland actually joined the EU so er it was sort of a parody of finnish policy to er to be erm an ideal member to say so erm so i will try to find possible explanation for this behaviour which is er different from erm for example the swedish example or the danish behaviour denmark being a er EU member for several time before that and er or norway's behaviour towards the EU norway applied three or four times and not becoming a member afterwards er due to the referendum that was held in the same day in norway sweden and finland with having the biggest support in finland in fact erm , so i will first have a look on the situation in in the the finnish situation in the early 90s and , erm that was erm pretty much , erm once again i er the situation you all went , basically the soviet union erm collapsed and er three main threats came out there was first the economic er 25 per cent of finland's foreign trade is with the sov- was with the soviet union so er the effect was a erm , erm major crisis with unemployment rates rising 20 per cent erm also sweden erm was about to er going into the european direction so we can talk about the swedish imperative which means that swedish companies competing on european markets erm is also a factor which ca- must be considered in finland erm also finnish companies were massively erm s- bringing money to e- or investing into EU countries and not so much into finland so something had to be done on the economic stage the second was of course the security issue erm which we talked about a lot which i don't have to explain anymore which er because russia erm well destabilised and was looking forward to a very uncertain political future so there was the the security threat in the east and er finland had to deal with that the third threat was simply staying out of everything would mean marginalisation , to finland also culturally and er so something had to be done there as well erm , to look at the goals that finland that are evolving are first prosperity and welfare of course in economic terms then gaining security and third to erm well being left like , having now the possibility to turn west is to find a western orientation to le- erm er to go in the direction that was erm well , of where finland belonged or where the people feel that they culturally belong and that is among the western european states erm so the possible solutions were to go through the the first possible solution would have to go closer to russia and that was probably er a no-option and nobody wanted that , the second would stay outside the EU like norway but it in fact would have been marginalisation and so erm i see tha- or my opinion the only possible er option at that time the beginning of the 90s was joining the EU but there was of course a serious trade off erm that is first loss of sovere- sovereignty national self erm yeah national sovereignty erm the loss of the national regulations on welfare and er also not to not to erm forget that loss of beyond national environmental standards w- erm so we can call that the integration dilemma because gaining prosperity security and the western orientation would mean a loss of sovereignty and so on erm so , erm what did finland actually do they erm it took the min- minimum risks strategy i supposed to become member of the EU because it would offer f- factors i i have been outlining before erm it's vital or it was vital to become member of the EU erm , and er the strategy was after the modern motto give in order to preserve is something that er sweden at that time also followed and erm , i will introduce two erm , two theoretical models er that for my in my opinion explain pretty well why erm finland behaved making a lot of concessions and hardly any demands that is first an adaption theory that i've er adopted by petersen petersen from denmark and er secondly a more interestingly actually for me the two level game er a two level game theory which er so i will erm but i will start with with the adaption theory erm so , (xx) up here <ROLLING UP OVERHEAD PROJECTOR SCREEN, P:10> okay erm and that way i will have to explain two fact it it's erm , a two dimensional thing that erm , er has erm two factors which is the first is influence capability which means erm the ability of country influencing pol- erm outside like acting independently and erm having influence on others on on other states basically the second is stress sensitivity erm meaning erm er the well it pretty much explains itself the sensitivity of a country fro- for on factors coming from the outside erm so it's an indica- erm , so if we erm i go through that we have if we have er high influence capability and low er little stress sensitivity we have a dominant mode which erm <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD> is er well the that can be the behaviour of very big influential countries such as france or germany in the EU for example can be explained by that erm if both is high influence capability and stress sensitivity which is the case for countries erm that er are for example inside like EU insiders erm we can say this is a balanced mode because it's like balancing between both and er now that the interesting point for us is the behaviour mode of finland which is here because the influence capability is pretty low for finland size is small there was no EU membership at that time economy is relatively small compared to other european countries and stress sensitivity is very high erm since er finland was or is dependent on foreign trade basically so erm it er reacts as we see in the in the erm on on the example of the economic crisis in the beginning of the 90s erm very er very sensitive to foreign erm er incidents like for example the collapse of the er soviet union and er in this this er sort of finnish behaviour would be er the best erm characterised as the acquiescent mode erm <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD> so finland being here somewhere and erm , so the two factors actually , erm i would say erm erm explain sort of , er why finland had or acted in this acquiescent manner so the second model which is more explaining be- or is explaining better or er even more detailed i'd say it is er a a two level game theory erm which erm is best er decri- described in er a strategic triangle i would say that so here we have the government of finland as the actor on the international level erm playing a two level game with internal erm factors and external factors and actors having to find a win set like erm erm there are er two wi- or er two ranges of possible solutions on the external game and what the win set of the internal game and er so if we have this as a stri- triangle the policy must go somewhere through here which is very narrow erm to satisfy both internal players and external players or actors in the external game of course erm sweden is the important one important actor because of the swedish imperative which i've been explaining before erm , russia because of security issues and , the EU more more erm importantly and especially the the inside EU countries that could block erm finnish membership or at least postpone it so they this have these actors have to be kept satisfied and there's er the major threat would be to behave in a too rough way or a too offensive way to sort of er offend in countries of the EU erm and then they using their veto power to sort of postpone our possible membership and the internal game this is more tricky we have erm several different erm players which is first of all the government itself then the general public which was er normally er in favour of er EU membership except farmers and their interest group and therefore one of the biggest parties the <FOREIGN> keskusta keskusta </FOREIGN> or a centre party which has been the agrarian party and which was pretty much in favour of erm the farmers er interests and the farmers of course being not in favour of EU membership because they had to erm well the future for them was that the agricultural sector would decline after EU membership because they're just simply not competitive erm the er the finnish er agricultural sector because like the conditions are erm not as good as in central europe because of the climate and erm so these farmers and their interest groups er had play important role in the centre party and the centre party again plays an important role in the national erm policy so there must this was the er this was the reason why there was made er apart from all the concessions were made one demand that was a 15 years transtion- transitional period for the for the so-called arctic farming and er </S6>
<S1> five </S1>
<S6> five </S6>
<S1> minutes left </S1>
<S6> okay <SS> @@ </SS> @@ five minutes five minutes okay erm @@ but 15 years not five erm , erm , erm so this was the only demand , because to sort of erm satisfy the interest group in order to get the centre party to (xx) in its agreement too joining the EU and erm , so there was er internal game inside the centre party for example because leaders were in favour the normal members were not so there was an alienation between the centre party leaders and their followers erm but anot- other important group in the internal game was of course media and business elites who were at a very very very erm to a very great extent in favour of EU membership so erm what comes out is that erm this narrow erm marge of where the external game and the internal game match there this policy had to be taken and that was the acquiescent mode and erm er making a lot of concessions and not making too many demands , erm good so i come to the conclusions pretty quickly erm er if there are no questions in the mean time erm or sugg- questions (xx) words i don't know i don't care if somebody is interrupts me <SU> @@ </SU> but erm i have basically four conclusions the first is that as i explained at the beginning joining the EU was the only solution for finland i think in the given situation the second is erm the actual mode of behaviour that was different from exam- for example sweden where the game was different or norway or denmark or any other country erm was to these specific internal and ex- external factors which explain the behaviour erm third the effects of this policy was actually the goals were achieved economically and also security s- speaking of that EU in my opinion erm provides a lot of security to the member countries because of the kind of like power and alliances er another effect was a spill over effect that led i did- i didn't explain that erm at all but i just mention it here that the constitutional change of last year erm was probably also er one of the effects of EU membership er a third effect is of course the end of non-alliance and neutrality which doesn't exist anymore in the finnish case the er the the fourth fourth effect loss of sov- sovereignty , this was the price to pay whereas i would ask well i mean national sovereignty in my personal point of view is not a must but you know this is something that people should decide for themselves and er the fifth and very important <COUGH> , erm in fact was of course the alie- alienation between government and elites and versus the people i'd say which i sort of roughly described on the erm on the er er example of the of the centre party but which was er which is also the case because the government had to act pretty much of its own and independently not taking into consideration too much what the people wanted and er yeah and er the fourth conclusion is , prospects now that we erm now that er finland is actually an EU country so the influencing capability through this increased because it has a veto power it has some erm it has some yeah influencing influential capability to take erm to well e- EU policy it must therefore move towards this balanced mode actually <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD> but erm </S6>
<S1> last minute </S1>
<S6> yes , i won't take anymore and erm the question is did that actually happen and er i found one very interesting number that erm for the voting behaviour of of finland in the council of ministers of in er in europe in the first four years of EU membership finland was the s- second er was the second to the bottom of the countries disagreeing just erm like 1.4 times a year voting against the majority er just luxemburg had less and for example sweden voted four times a year against the majority denmark 4.6 and germany ate- the made us the major party pooper 12.8 times a year just as a small comparison so they still behave like this erm though they have more influential power erm why is that so i don't know erm should be i- did some more enquiry maybe it's just complete identification with europe or political culture i don't know because i've didn't , did anything on that so that was it </S6>
<APPLAUSE>
