Dispatches from the northern front. The Finnish general election of 2011

What it's all about

So most people will have seen the Finnish election result by now. The success of the populist-right wing True Finns has made the headlines around the world, particularly in relation to whether they will enter government and block the EU financial assistance package to Portugal. But here are a few thoughts on the election from an outsider who has been watching Finnish politics for quite a long time now.

Firstly, this is PR – everyone’s a winner or loser depending on your outlook on life. Yes, the True Finns hugely increased their vote, but they still only got 19% of the vote. Less than one in five voting Finns agrees with them. If you think the True Finns are scary or wrong or silly, then don’t worry – 4 out 5 voting Finns agree with you.

The leader of the SDP said that “there’s no shame in getting silver”. She’s right – they came second, not too bad considering how poor the SDP has been looking in recent times. But let’s not forget, they came second by 0.1% - hardly clear blue water.

There's a foreign minister lurking in my local coffee shop! Seemed to work though, he got the second biggest personal vote in the country.

Likewise, the leader of Kokoomus, the National Coalition Party, was proud to announce that it was a historic night for them becoming the biggest party in the country for the first time. And this is also true, so congrats to Kokoomus, but they also lost votes from the last general election, and were only clear of the second place SDP by 1.3%.

So as I said: that’s PR for you – it’s fair but no one is even close to being a majority on their own and even the winner can only fairly claim to speak for one in five of the electorate. No party has a ‘natural’ right to be in government in such a system – if the second, third and fourth placed parties got together they would have a simple majority in the parliament, and could exclude the party that actually ‘won’ the election. This is unlikely to happen due to tradition and expectation, but it could happen.

Standing around in the rain, getting ignored. Isn't politics great?

At the moment it is suggested that Kokoomus, the True Finns and the SDP will try to form a government if they can agree on a programme. This is likely to produce all sorts of odd dynamics. Timo Soini, the True Finns leader, has said that he sees his party being close to the SDP, and economically this is true – both want to defend the welfare state and are happy to raise taxes to do so. It’s just that the True Finns don’t want any outsiders joining that welfare state (“this is a local welfare state for local people! There’s nothing for you here.”). The SDP have also been playing with Euroscepticism in the last Parliament – voting against the Greek bailout for example. There is nothing new about leftwing parties positioning themselves against the EU – as anyone with a passing knowledge of the history of the British Labour Party well knows. The SDP were from early 90s to 2003, under Lipponen’s prime ministership, very pro-EU, but the left of party such as President Halonen and former foreign minister Tuomioja always had their doubts. SDP watchers can perhaps correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the current leader Urpilainen and party secretary Jungner are identified more with the Lipponen-wing of the party, so are perhaps not particularly eurosceptic, but nevertheless the party has tacked that way, and it will make a government with Kokoomus and the True Finns ‘interesting’ when EU matters will be so central.

Anti-politics in Vantaa. I think we can put the perpetrator down as a "non of the above" type of guy.

The True Finns in government are the proverbial wild card. Tomi Huhtanen neatly puts it: “The True Finns’ party programme is actually rather mainstream; the problem is that hardly anyone in the party adheres to it.” So much focus was on Timo Soini (who as a result took the biggest personal vote in the country), less attention has been paid to those who came in on his coat tails. Quite possibly some will be hardworking, attentive MPs who regardless of their politics, will be doing their best for the people who voted for them. Others, well, perhaps less so. A number of times in the past Soini has had to distance himself from the antics, at times openly racist antics, of others in his party. Now with more media attention, there is a good chance similar will be seen and even if they do keep discipline, virtually all are new to national politics and the media will be happy to show up gaps in their knowledge.

Perhaps more importantly are the tensions within the party. Jussi Halla-Aho did well in the elections with a strong personal vote, and is well known for his outspoken anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim views. Halla-Aho’s association with the True Finns is complex, in the past he has stood on their ticket, but without being a party member – but now he seems to be in the party with both feet. His internationally influenced anti-Islam politics is closer to the politics of Geert Wilders in Holland or Vlaams Belang in Flanders, than it is to the rural-populist tradition that Timo Soini comes from. There have been and remain some tensions within the True Finns between the young Turks (yes, there is some irony to calling them that) who are Halla-Aho’s supporters and I guess what you can call the old guard. Soini is the man of the moment, but as Taneli Heikka perceptively notes that whilst “Soini has said he is happy with the current state of affairs with immigration policy, […]seven out of 39 [new True Finn] MP's have signed a staunch anti-immigration manifesto, and they want more. A government with True Finns will have to go for tougher measures on immigration, or the party (and the government) faces collapse. Mr Soini knows this.”

If you don't know anything about the EU...

Through work and studies I know lots of people who know an awful lot about the EU, (don't worry though - it doesn't necessarily make them weird, or bad dinner guests. Well, not in every case.) but that is very far from the norm. Because of all the areas where the EU has some influence - for good or bad - most people have some opinion on it, but unless you really don't have anyhing to do with your spare time, most people don't know much about how and why the EU is now as it is. I happened to hear an interview with Paul Krugman today; the subject was really the future of the Euro - where he could do his whole Nobel-winning-economist-thang. Obviously this is worth listening to in its own right, but on his way to making those points he gave a very decent, clear and concise history of the EU, and being on American radio - it was aimed at people who are even less likely to know about why and what the EU is than your average European. Well worth 10 minutes of any inquiring mind's time.

The EU wants your babies for war

So the EU's web "portal" (that sounds so 90s doesn't it) Europa has had a make-over, theoretically making it easier to find the stuff you need from the millions of pages they have. This is what now it looks like:


Blah, blah, blah... all for the good I'm sure. But I want to know what the hell is going on with the little Euro silhouette people down at the bottom of the page? Check this screen grab:


Now lets zoom in on those kids:

So what the hell is with baby number three? I'm telling you - that is a baby in a kevlar with night vision attached:


So that is what the ESDP is all about: the EU wants your kids for the battlefields of Afghanistan. Someone better tell the Irish No Campaign.

Mallorca #1: Serra del Caval Bernat

Mallorca for me has always brought to mind drunk, loud British people in bars. Of course this is great fun when you are one of the drunk, loud, English people (or indeed drunk and loud but of some other nationality), but it is less attractive when you're not. Hence, Mallorca had never really made it on to my list of potential holiday destinations. But for reasons of family harmony I found myself heading that way last week.

Sunrise over Cap Formentor (click on any photo for bigger version)

In actual fact the island is beautiful with some stunning mountains across its entire northern half. By the power of Google I quickly discovered that there appeared to be plenty of climbing possibilities and further research also turned up what looked like a rather remarkable scramble - the Caval Bernat Ridge above Port de Pollença on the east of the island. Being there in August, it soon became apparent that dealing with the heat would be the crux, so a rather un-holidayesque 5 am alarm call was set and we were parked and walking by 6 am.

The rising traverse to the first high point

The ridge rises straight from the sea on its north side, and most start at the eastern end - approaching down the valley to its south. A beach marks the end of this valley and from there you take a rising traverse up to the first high point on the ridge. We had been told stories about a tricky step and took a rope as a precaution, but this stayed packed at the bottom of my bag, and we found ourselves on the ridge after some fun but not very tricky scrambling. Looking down the vertical north side of the ridge, the exposure is sickening as it falls at the highest point 350 metres down to the waves. In some points the peaks on the ridge actually overhang the north face - and I couldn't help thinking it would be a very safe base jump - except the obvious problem of there being nothing but water to land on.

Starting along the ridge proper

The south side of the ridge isn't too exposed...

The north side is.

Despite the rapidly building heat after sunrise, a strong breeze made things ok on the exposed crest. The limestone of the ridge is amazingly rough and spiky - superbly grippy on our hiking shoes but a bit rough on your hands. Fingerless leather gloves wouldn't be a bad idea at all (although avoid black ones if you don't want to look like a terrorist/counter-terrorism operative). We took a quite exposed direct line to the highest point on the first half of the ridge (we were told it looks like an eagle with spread wings from Port de Pollenca - so this would be the eagle's head). This was probably as close to needing a rope as we came - but like most of the other summits along the crest, an easier way could be contrived by taking a less direct line.

The eagle's head

A col marks the halfway point along the ridge and allows and easy descent down into the valley. We bailed at this point as even at 10 am it was getting ridiculously hot when out of the breeze and despite having brought three litres of water I was down to my last half litre plus, we suspected, we would soon be running out baby sitting credits with granny and grandad. There looks to be some fine scrambling on the peak immediately after the col, but after that the ridge appears to eases off a little with less steep up and downs, although still with the remarkable exposure on the north side.

Looking back from the halfway col

So in retrospect, early August might not be the optimum time for doing the route, especially for pasty and un-acclimatised-to-the-heat-and-sun northerners. Nevertheless, it still beats hanging with my tattooed, lager-lout fellow countrymen in Magaluf.

British humour on Finnish posters?

The posters have gone up for "Brüno - the movie" in Helsinki. I read on Twitter yesterday that my favourite movie reviewer, Dr. Kermode, is refusing to see it on the basis of the poster alone. I'm not sure if it is the same one as this, but probably as I can see his point. Anyways; I was just wondering about the cultural resonance of "Achtung!" in Finland. Finns seems to get British humour very well - for older Finns when they say the British and Finnish sense of humour is very similar they normally base this on one thing: Benny Hill. Looking at some classic Finnish comedy movies, I can kind of see how they would get to that conclusion. But many younger Finns seems to greatly enjoy what I think of as British humour - be that Peep Show, The Office, League of Gentlemen, Smack the Pony, or The Thick Of It - all of which have been or currently are on Finnish TV, along with older classics from Black Adder to Monty Python.

But doesn't the "Achtung!" on the Brüno poster rely on British comics and war movies of the 70s and earlier for its comic value? For Brits of at least my (and Baron-Cohen's) age, if not younger, the word "Achtung" can only be followed with one other, and that is "Spitfire" - U2's best efforts not withstanding. Finns have their own war comics that still seem to be selling well today (and that could be the subject of a whole other post...), but I don't thinks the baddies in them would be yelling "Achtung Spitfire!".

Perhaps Brüno is reclaiming the comedy value of "Achtung!" in this Europeanised era for the whole of the continent? Brüno, we salute you - a potential contender for European of the year perhaps.

Billy few mates goes to Brussels

The Times reports on the newly elected BNP MEPs visiting Brussels to get things started. They haven't found enough support yet to form a grouping within the European Parliament; the Italian Northern League MEPs seem to be wisely steering well clear of them, along with Wilders and co from Holland and the Danish Peoples Party. But according to Nick Griffin, they have agreed to cooperate with the Hungarian Jobbik (and who wouldn't want to cooperate with a party so cool that it has its own militia with armbands, boots and everything?), the Bulgarian Attack Party and Belgium's Vlaams Belang. Are we seeing a pattern forming here?

Euro-election results

I'm totally enjoying discussing and following all the news on Twitter. Hence nothing here. Here in Finland, my man put in a fine effort for a first timer, and good to see two Greens squeaking through at the last minute. More in the not too distant future hopefully.

Vote 138 on Sunday!

If you are in Finland and still thinking about who to vote for on Sunday in the European Parliament elections - or even if you had already decided - I urge you to consider supporting Charly Salonius Pasternak - no. 138. My main reason to vote for Charly is because he is a good mate; but he's a good mate because I respect him for being a friendly, sensible, grounded and decent bloke - and that's a good start for being a politician. He is standing for the Swedish People's Party (SFP) (the party traditionally supported by Finland's Swedish speaking minority) but he is no party hack, finding instead that the SFP's moderate centerism and membership of the Liberal bloc in the European Parliement suited him.

Charly is an expert on peacekeeping, crisis management and other international military operations and on trans-Atlantic relations. He has past experience in the business world, military and has lived around the world, including a considerable time in the US. He has impeccable liberal sympathies in the best European (dare I say Scottish?) sense and would make an excellent MEP who can balance Finland's interests in the EU with the EU's wider interests at the community level.

Vote for Charly, he'll do a good job.

European Cooperation - isn't it nice that we all get along?

It's a funny thing, but until yesterday I don't think I had heard of the Czech nationalist political party Národni Strana, and then they're suddenly popping up everywhere. In Finland today it is reported that the slightly odd, but quite successful, Finnish heavy metal cello band Apocalyptica (yes - cellos!) are going to take Národni Strana to court. The Czech nationalists had, without permission or payment, been using some Apocalyptica music in their adverts. Apocalyptica - despite the slightly dodgy heavy metal look - are obviously sound lads and put out the following statement:

This is an official statement by the band about the illegal use of our song 'Path' in a tv and internet commercial in the Czech Republic. Apocalyptica always supports minorities, stands up for human rights, respects every human being, no matter their colour, ethnic background or religion, worldwide. Apocalyptica also supports the idea of a united Europe and the European Union. We hope it is a clear statement that we would never allow the Czech Republican party Národni Strana to use any of our music.

Having your music nicked must be annoying, but the band is particularly narked that the music was used in a now infamous advert by the party where they call for the "Final Solution" to the Czech Republic's gypsy problem. The final solution turns out to be 'only' the deportation of all Czech gypsies to India. The leader of the party is Petra Edelmannova; here she is in the picture below with Nick Griffin leader of the BNP. She was going to come and enjoy some good ole' English hospitality at the BNP's Red, White and Blue festival last summer, but unfortunately it seems couldn't make it in the end. But there is lots of news and pic about her friends in the UK on the Národni Strana website.


She did though make it to Cologne recently, for the Pro-Köln get-together. Here she is with Filip Dewinter of Vlaams Belang and Markus Beisicht of Pro-Köln.

Petra and Filip seem to be good mates, as Dewinter has a different picture of them holding hands on his own website:


She's young, she's smart - what's not to love (beyond the expulsion of people who don't fit your sense of ethnic purity obviously)? To quote one commentator: "the young party leader is seen as one of the future hopes for a modern patriotic party with a European orientation." Presumably, she just didn't tell Vlaams Belang about her final solution for the 'blacks' because they wouldn't want anything to do with those type of nasty race-based politics. Oh, hang on a minute...

UKIP - dodgy buggers

Westminster is still wallowing in its own do-do, but don't vote for UKIP in the Euro elections as a better alternative!

"The leader of the UK Independence party (Ukip), which wants to lead Britain out of the EU, has taken £2m of taxpayers' money in expenses and allowances as a member of the European Parliament, on top of his £64,000 a year salary."

Thanks to Nosemonkey via Twitter.

Who Brits should probably not vote for on June 4th

Euro elections are a comin'! It really isn't a very opportune time in the UK where politicians' stock has fallen further than at any point before due to the great expenses scandal of 2009. Minor parties were probably always going to do well in the Euros, as people all seem to vote on the basis the national situation, not the European one, but in the UK currently this effect is likely to be amplified. Protests votes are all well and good - but think about what you are voting for as well as what you are voting against. UKIP MEPs, on top of being nutters, seem to have tendency of actually managing to be more corrupt than all the MPs back in Westminster. Meanwhile the BNP might be trying to redefine themselves as the saviours of the working class, but remain the nasty racists they have always been.

The BBC versus the EU

The following story was recounted by an anonymous, but prominent, British political scientist about a meeting he had had with an unnamed senior BBC news executive. He had been asked to visit the BBC, along with some other academic experts on the EU, to discuss the BBC’s coverage of the EU. The Beeb thought they were doing rather well, to which the experts laughed in their faces and pointed out that whilst the BBC news covers congressional hearings in Washington for relatively lowly positions in the Obama administration, they hadn’t covered the hearings for the European Commissioners. The response to which was: “they have hearings for the commissioners?” Lets remember all; the commissioners produce laws that effect every one us Europeans on a daily basis.

At this point the academics showed the BBC chaps the data that shows that the BBC has less coverage of the EU on its evening news programmes than any other broadcaster across the 27 European Union members. Without missing a beat, and with a straight face, the unnamed senior BBC executive replied: “Yes, but that is because we are a very important country and therefore have lots more news to report.”

And yes, Mark Mardell and his Euroblog is an honourable exception to the rule of crappy BBC coverage.

Brussels blogging

It's a grand place.

Beer and food - Brussels at its best

Le Perroquet - a restaurant with dozens of different types of tasty pitas but completely indifferent service!

Taking chocolate to fetish levels

Somehow even the logo looks amateurish, hmmm....

Police van with lots riot shields in the middle of Saturday afternoon shoppers - they were very rowdy shoppers though.

Scotland, and not recognising Kosovo

An odd thought occurred to me yesterday, we were chatting about the independence of Kosovo and its recognition by other states. So far only 22 out 27 EU states recognise Kosovo as an independent and sovereign state. The EU has a large mission in Kosovo, EULEX, where it has taken over from the UN and is basically partnering with the nascent institution of the Kosovar government, providing a parallel civil service. One of my colleagues has actually been seconded to the mission so is now living in Pristina. Anyway, because of the non-unanimous position within the EU, EULEX in Pristina can't use a list of words in any official documents that refer to independence, including the former Finnish president and nobel peace prize winner, Martti Ahtisaari, who negotiated the plan for Kosovo's independence and the plan is named after. Spain, Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Slovakia are the five EU members that won't recognise Kosovo. I'm not certain why Greece won't but it probably is connected to their long running (and to outsiders, rather pointless) fight with Macedonia over it's name. Romania and Slovakia both have I believe large Hungarian minorities and they fear separatism from those communities. Cyprus doesn't want Turkish North Cyprus to gain recognition as a sovereign state, and Spain is worried by Basque and Catalan separtism.

But if all these countries fear that recognition sets a precedent leading to other breakaway movements - why wasn't the UK in the slightest bit concerned that recognition could set a precedent for a Scottish unilateral declaration of independence? The UK strongly supported recognition from early on. I'm tempted to say it is because the UK is a mature and stable democracy and we (both Scots and and non-Scots) just don't do that sort of civil war mongering, but are we really that much more mature than the Spanish? So there must be another reason - is it something to do with the Scottish nationalism being more of the French-citizen type than the Germanic blood-and-soil type? Answers on a postcard please to the normal address (the comments box).

Now it all makes sense...

(pictures, left: Lucifer - prince of darkness.
Right: Javier Solana - prince of Europe. Ask
yourself - have you ever seen them both in
the same room!?)

I've spent too much of today reading official EU documents and treaties. In fact any time reading them, is too much time for me - the process just seems to suck the very core of my soul out. But now I know why! It's not just that trying to understand "Permanent Structured Cooperation" is marginally less interesting than watching paint dry. It is that actually Permanent Structured Cooperation is the work of the Antichrist!

So who is the future target of this building of “emergency powers” being handed to this one man they call Mr. Europe? Would he really start a war against Jews and Christians worldwide?

I'd like to see Javier Solana take on "Jews and Christians worldwide", although my money would be on the Jews and Christians knocking out Javier by the second round.

We can skip over a few minor issues such as that the writer of this deep prophetic insight was writing in 2007 about a text that had been rejected by voters in France and Holland two years earlier, or that the the EU becoming shock troops for the UN is about as likely as, well, Jesus deciding to stage his second coming in my back garden tomorrow afternoon. Presumably if God works in mysterious ways, so must the devil. And when you have spent your day reading things like this:

The permanent structured cooperation referred to in Article I‑41(6) of the Constitution shall be open to any Member State which undertakes, from the date of entry into force of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, to:

(a) proceed more intensively to develop its defence capacities through the development of its national contributions and participation, where appropriate, in multinational forces, in the main European equipment programmes, and in the activity of the Agency in the field of defence capabilities development, research, acquisition and armaments (European Defence Agency), and
(b) have the capacity to supply by 2007 at the latest, either at national level or as a component of multinational force groups, targeted combat units for the missions planned, structured at a tactical level as a battle group, with support elements including transport and logistics, capable of carrying out the tasks referred to in Article III‑309, within a period of 5 to 30 days, in particular in response to requests from the United Nations Organisation, and which can be sustained for an initial period of 30 days and be extended up to at least 120 days.

(and that is just Article 1!) you would probably also come to the conclusions of its diabolical origins.

Paris

Bon soir mes amis – I’m in Paris just in case you couldn’t guess, and it also seems that someone is trying to remind somebody else that France is in the EU.

It’s a few years since I last visited, but my opinion hasn’t changed – its rather like London isn’t it? This might sound sacrilegious for both Londoners and Parisians but it's true.


Lots of trees, tourists and illegal immigrants flogging tourist tat to them, roads going in random directions, parks, crazy traffic, cops everywhere, a big river through the middle etc. Obviously they aren’t identical, but they ‘feel’ very similar. I've even got a hotel room a bit like the ones they always have in Hollywood movies - where you can always see the Eiffel Tower, although I have to look sharply upwards to do so.

Live foreign minister gossip!

The interesting men of Nordic Foreign Policy (snapped on my phone)

I'm listening to Carl Bildt of Sweden (left) and Alexander Stubb (right) of Finland give a talk on the future of European security. It's fun as they are both bright fellas with outspoken views. Stubb just said the new European Security Strategy is almost certainly going to be "wishy washy crap" - and that's a direct quote! - if some serious political will isn't put into it.

I like ("just call me") Alex - I might not agree with him on everything, but the man has style. Finnish foreign policy are still waters, and whilst those still waters do without doubt run deep, they are very still. Stubb arriving on the scene wasn't a brick being thrown into those still waters, it was a hand grenade.

EUFOR Chad: this isn't going to end well

I happened to be interviewing a Finnish Ministry of Defence official this morning on a totally unconnected issue, but he mentioned in passing that the just deployed EU mission to Chad, which includes Finnish troops, requires a particularly highly trained level of soldier due to the political and cultural complexity of the situation and the very harsh operating climate. After today's terrible events it might be a start if their training covered map reading. An EUFOR jeep strayed into Sudan, got shot at, one of the two soldiers in the vehicle is now missing and a rescue/recovery party was also fired on and seem to have returned fire killing one or two Sudanese.

The speed at which the EU managed to get together the mission is best described as glacial, what they actually want to achieve in a politically contorted environment is vague at best, and as an under-secretary for UN peace-keeping said at a seminar I went to last week - the EU powers are already talking cynically about the UN being their "exit strategy" from any Chadian quagmire. The same guy said that looking from the outside, the EU seems to use up so much political energy coming to a decision internally that it has little left for dynamism internationally. You get the feeling the EU isn't taking this very seriously.

Blogging from Brussels

Half a pig and dijonaise sauce - yummy

Spring time in the heart of Europe

I like Brussels, which is just as well as it seems to be about the only place I ever get to go on work trips. It's raining and gray, but it is still so much more "European" than Helsinki. Everywhere there is a bar or café that you want to go into, or even sit outside despite the drizzle. I'm sure the women of Brussels are disproportionately attractive as well, although maybe that's just me enjoying one aspect of the diversity of a real European - indeed global - metropolis, compared to which, Helsinki look rather provincial and boringly monocultural. The beer is much, much, much (and indeed one more-) much better as well.

I'm starting to realise there are two cities as well, Brussels and "Brussels". The first is the biggest city in Belgium, historically interesting, racially diverse reflecting Belgium's imperial past, and in places a little bit shabby. It is a normal, large western European city with all the advantages and problems that this implies. And then there is "Brussels", which is where the EU lives. It predominantly exists in the minds of the people of Europe who collectively tend to think of it as a large trough in which their elected and unelected leaders go to try and get their snouts into. For national politicians around Europe it is the place to blame or hide behind dependent on what is politically expedient at that moment. But "Brussels" is a real place as well - a few blocks around the Schuman metro stop in particular. In fact, maybe it isn't real, it might actually be hyperreal. It is populated by "Europeans" who tend to be amongst the best and the brightest (and most ambitious) that their home countries produce. I'm sure these people are genetically slightly different - a little bit taller on average, a little bit better looking. Most certainly better dressed - they are the type of people who you see in the adverts in in-flight magazines. This is perhaps because they are the type of people who buy their clothes in the airport boutiques?

Anyway - I like both Brussels and "Brussels". Except for the rain.

Finland and the EU Security Guarantees

There has recently been much, much interest amongst the Finnish political class about the supposed "EU Security Guarantees" that are perhaps, or perhaps not, in the Lisbon treaty (check this article and the links at the bottom, or these search results). After much early scepticism, the interest in them has swung in the opposite direction to a nearly-religious faith in the idea, despite the fact that no other EU member seems to take the idea centrally in their security planning. Why the sudden conversion? Because, almost ironically, the EU is not NATO. When the voters and the elites seem to be worrying that the country has some sort of security deficit (again, a problematic assumption in itself), the politicians want to respond but know they can't touch the third rail of Finnish politics and say "lets think about joining NATO!". Suggesting even considering NATO, regardless of all evidence on the ground as to what NATO now is and what is it likely to become, marks the politician out as a neo-imperialist, Yankee-loving, war-mongering, running-dog - or something along those lines. The Finnish NATO debate is about whether or not to join a NATO that hasn't existed for the best part of a decade. Joining that NATO may well be a good or not good idea for Finland, but the debate seems somewhat academic as that NATO doesn't exist.

But back to the EU. How seriously should we take the security guarantees? As yet - and things can change - not very seriously. If the EU won't send peacekeeping troops to Chad because of - errrr... - fighting that is taking place there, I can't imagine those in the Kremlin is having any sleepless nights over the massing EU armies forming on their western borders. The Chad situation - something that this blog has followed a bit in the past - is interesting in itself (for an excellent pithy briefing on the subject listen to this week's Instant Guide), but it also reflects a non-"robustness" (to use my favourite security policy euphemism) in the current, at least, EU approach to security.