<TITLE: Politics Seminar 2
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: social sciences
DISCIPLINE: political science
EVENT TYPE: seminar presentation
FILE ID: USEMP01E
NOTES: continuation of and continued in USEMD01B, seminar also includes presentation USEMP01D

RECORDING DURATION: 16 min 1 sec

RECORDING DATE: 29.11.2001

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 10

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 2

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

S7: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: German; ACADEMIC ROLE: undergraduate; GENDER: female; AGE: 17-23>


<S7> well <COUGH> my topic is finland's role in the united nations just you might wonder i was changing my subject <S1> [mhm] </S1> [a bit] it was before northern dimension of the united nations , er i would like to go through to er all the different phases of the finnish membership in the united nations from its preparations after the second world war and through time becoming a member in 199- in 1955 and then until the post cold war phase which i would rather call er a phase of new dimensions than a phase of changes but i will then refer to this later on , to make it a bit more interesting i brought the table which i . which i took from an article written by <NAME> it's actually written in was written in finnish so i was translating it i hope it's erm quite okay now was also making some changes and i was (xx) so erm yeah erm why it's crucial to look at the finni- finnish membership my opinion in a periodical order is to make it clear that they have been quite many different erm that finland was er erm in quite many different roles erm and , as and as you will probably be notice also er because of with the help of this table the finnish UN er UN policy has been quite dependent on the international security system especially during the cold war so until 1989 , and in other words er within this speech i would like to show how finland has adapted its UN er policy to tensions within the international system , because there are quite crucial differences as we will see erm within its foreign pol- policy emphasis and the activities finland finland was (ontaking) , so let's start with erm the year 1945 un- un- until nine- er 55 so it was the beginning of the cold war and at that time the liberty of action in the finnish foreign policy was quite minor because finland was still uncertain about which way to go in its foreign policy erm of course most important -portant were relations with the east so first of all the paris pre- er peace treaty from 1947 and as important the treaty on friendship and cooperation and mutual assistance in 1948 with ru- er with the soviet union so i think you already know what this treaty was erm but still they were quite er some interests already in 1947 for finland to join the UN and it was already approaching the secretary general , at that point of time and the application was set in motion but er then it took eight more years for finland until it then finally joined the UN and that that was mostly because then after 1947 the cold war spread as we all know with the erm foundation of the NATO and so the UN thought that new members might endanger the existing prevalence of that moment , and so anyway finland itself was quite unsure if it actually should join the UN er during those years president paasikivi er first of all was against the united nations because he <SIC> feeled </SIC> that within er the organisation they would be dealt too much with erm great power conflicts and he didn't want finland to get its fingers burned because in the UN there was on the one side erm the US a member from (the beginning) and on other side soviet union , erm and then of course he was also considering the soviet military base which was still erm a just few kilometres outside of helsinki in porkkala until 1955 , erm yeah and it can also to be seen that finland was at that point of time also outside of the nordic corporation and it was not taking part in a discussions about the common security system in 1948 and not erm it not it got not a member when the nordic council was founded in 1952 , yeah but then 1952 there were also seen already some more advantages erm because paasikivi said that er finland is a small state and inside of within the UN it could be inter- get international respect er respected as such a one and here he was quite at the same level with his prime minister kekkonen at this time it was prime minister because he said in his words it was like important to be seen as a sovereign nation among the big group of other nations in the UN , and so at this point of time they were then approaching again more to the united nations , and then next phase was erm 1955 to 1956 just a short period can be called the spirit of geneva when erm uni- er united states great britain france and soviet union were meeting in geneva and dealing with the german question and the european security system and this meant for finland that after this meeting the least porkkala enclave was returned and erm because of this paasikivi said that now the conditions for an our neu- neutrality are created and so at the same er yeah same moment finland got the member in the nordic council 1955 and in december a member in the united nations but still there was no real enthusiasm about this membership in the beginning and , but still finland then saw it as a possibility to show that it's a neutral country worldwide so that the other states will see that this is a one of er one finnish identity , and there were also two other identities which finland wanted to show to the others which was erm the one as an indu- industrialised country of course and then as a nordic country together with the others , and erm at their identity towards er the nordic identity could be seen as a er movement towards the west and the industrialised identity i would say show could show good relations towards east and west , erm yeah and then the next phase from 1956 to 63 is when then the cold war was continuing , and erm during that period finland was opening towards neutrality er quite a lot and it culminated then 1961 when erm president kekkonen went er made a trip to the US and there he made a speech in front of the general assembly and there he was stressing over and over again that finland erm is a neutral country and that it wants to take the role as a mediate in times of conflict , and important to mention is already at that time in 1956 that finland started with activities as er in peace keep- er as a peace keeper they were already as i said 1956 when the first finnish company was already sent to suez for peace keeping activities and this was quite a surprise to the government in the beginning because because they were still doubt- doubting the membership , but still they were agreeing when erm the secretary general dag hammarskiöld asked finland for help and so were there send- they were sending 250 men which were then working actively in the suez area , and then erm after the cuba crisis er the period 1963 to 79 was then er as we know a relaxation of tensions and besides the UN for finland also erm the CSCE er progress played played an important role in this period er because er yeah in fin- er in helsinki the document was signed in 1975 and so besides the UN the CSCE was the main foreign policy emphasis in this period , and still finland kept this active neutrality neutrality policy and with the strong desire for international peace this can be seen that besides the peace keeping activities finland was also taking part in disarmament questions and aid for erm undeveloped countries for example er the former president martti ahtisaari he was working a lot at that time as UN UN ambassador in tanzania and namibia , and the highlight in this period for the UN foreign er policy was that finland was a member in the security council in 1969 and 70 , this means that erm it was acting equally with the er five permanent members US soviet union france china and the united kingdom besides four other members which were just acting for two years so and in this period erm they were mainly concentrating on the middle east and erm african developing countries , so erm the next phase as we call it here the second cold war with starting with the soviet invasion in afghanistan in this period the liberty of action was quite tapering again and their relations to the UN came more in background erm there started a quite new interesting finnish foreign policy which was europe , f- but still it was quite rather small interest and remain in background in this period so the only thing that remained were the active peacekeeping operations , mhm then after 18- 80- after 85 the political climate got worse and erm , and in this period finland would most of all approaching the european union and it became a full member in er EFTA and then in ei- 1989 in european council this was quite important considering the er eur- united nations policy because european council also dealt with human rights erm and it got at that point gained gained at that point more importance for finland erm and again as a highlight i- in this base finland was again member of the security council in 1989 1990 and it's quite erm those were quite significant years and the foreign ministry was even publishing a report about it where talked about the activities and achievements during those years and so again quite much in the south africa and the middle east as already before , in the 60s , yeah then sort of post cold war period erm this period is quite marked with partly growing and partly limiting activities i would say growing it's because , finland was taking part in all important fields i would say in peacekeeping again development aid human rights policy and also disarmament and the highlight in disarmament policy was then (which) erm (very) finland joined the disarmament conference in geneva in 1996 , and , but again peacekeeping remained most important erm i mean it's just one number during soon 50 years of membership there were 35,000 finns er volunteering for international peacekeeping missions and this means that every tenth peacekeeper all over the world was a finn and this is the highest number of all countries in the world , but then on the other side there were also quite limited erm actions during the post cold war period i would say and this is mainly because of the recession in the beginning of the 90s , erm can be said that the contribution to development construction work has been reduced from 0.7 per cent of the GDP to about 0.3 per cent and this has ha- also has another reason because nowadays finland is of course because of its membership in the european union fin- financing also european commission development projects and so there is this has been er another important effect in its foreign policy so the european union membership but it's also had some other effects on the UN membership mhm first of all erm the main interest in finnish foreign policy is now for sure situated in europe and the significance of the UN as a self-evident and important arena has quite declined during the last years i would say and this has also another reason because of the institutionalisation of the OSCE in 1990 so there were also quite which took also quite a few erm yeah is now is now more important than it was before </S7>
<S1> five minutes </S1>
<S7> mhm yeah last thing another question er is that how f- how fin- in which way finland will appear in future within the united nations which i thought was quite interesting erm as i said in the beginning finland was taking in three identities this was the neutral one the industrialised one and the nordic one and of course the industrialised one remained until today but the other ones the nordic and the neu- neutral one have of course changed in the post cold war erm period mhm finland is a neutral country this is well not true anymore as it was because as we know finland is approaching more and more a NATO membership and the nordic identity i would say has rather changed to a european one because of the membership in the european union erm , yeah , mhm . this was actually everything yeah the conclusion erm . i would although there is this european identity now within the erm yeah with- within finland since the the european union membership i think the northern identity will be kept i- within the european identity and there was even a meeting of all the nordic countries within the nordic council in 1995 where they discussed exactly this pro- er problem about their memberships in the UN and they said that they will keep on erm holding this forum of all the nordic countries because of the problem that nor- er norway and iceland are not members in the european union and that their erm their cooperation has been worked so well together in the e- er within the united nations for nearly 50 years now so yeah that was actually everything </S7>
