Last year saw the creation (so far only on paper) of a research network called Institutions, Democracy and Semi-Presidentialism (IDSP). One of the eventual aims is to establish a series of correspondents who will be able to report on the latest developments from different semi-presidential countries. Obviously, it is hard for me to keep up with everything. If you would like to be included in the general e-mail list for the ISDP, then please just let me know.
Anyway, in the general spirit of this initiative, I am going to ask various people to do guest posts with information about their country of expertise. The first is by David Arter, who is now at the University of Tampere. He is reporting on a ongoing issue relating to the presidential/prime ministerial management of foreign affairs in Finland. Very many thanks to David for agreeing to do the post.
THE FINNS ARE TIRED, BRING IN SOME SWEDES
DAVID ARTER
It has proved a field-day for the tabloids – at least those in Sweden! ‘Tired Finnish soldiers replaced by tough Swedes’ ran the headline in Sweden’s Aftonbladet and elsewhere there were allegations that the Finnish troops were young, inexperienced and homesick. It has proved manna from heaven too for the leading opposition Social Democrats, who have for long been languishing in the polls and whose leader was rated at a miserable ‘6 minus’ – the lowest of any of the party leaders – in Saturday’s Iltalehti. During last Thursday’s Question Time in the Eduskunta, the Social Democrats wheeled out their heavy brigade – the former chair, Eero Heinäluoma, and former foreign secretary, Erkki Tuomioja – to claim that the government had by-passed the decision-making procedures laid down in the constitution. “The soldiers have marched all over the leading politicians.”
What’s it all about? The news that the 86 extra Finnish troops, sent out in July as part of NATO’s 42-country ISAF force to maintain security during the August presidential election campaign, are to return home before the new election on November 7th. The contracts with the soldiers expire on October 28th and many it seems have indicated an unwillingness to continue in what has been a dangerous operation. Nothing remarkable in that? Well, no, except that the president, as Supreme Commander of the Defence Forces, the prime minister Matti Vanhanen, and most other cabinet ministers knew nothing about it. Vanhanen has spoken of a ‘wide-ranging breakdown in communication’ whilst the president, Tarja Halonen, who was visiting Egypt and Syria when she got word of the early troop-return, has subsequently suggested that it was more than a technical breakdown in communication. After all, Finland is a land of mobile phones.
The story is building up a head of steam. It appears that the information that the extra peacekeepers would return at the end of October was passed on to the President’s Office on October 16 before the president’s Africa trip. The Defence Minister under fire, Jyri Häkämies, has claimed to have kept in touch with the president on the matter as well the cabinet committee on foreign and security policy which, when present, she chairs. The wider significance of the episode, however, relates to the perceived marginalisation of the president. A working group under the former minister, Christoffer Taxell, was due to come up with proposals for [yet more!] constitutional reform in September, then October, now the end of November but so far nothing has materialised. Significantly though, the Minister for Justice has already proposed removing the Supreme Commander’s role from the president’s portfolio and this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg. Saturday’s Helsingin Sanomat’s editorial was entitled ‘the Uninvited Guest’ and referred to Halonen’s decision to attend next week’s EU Brussels summit despite the fact that none of the agenda items fall within the president’s remit. Hawks say ‘Article 93’ –the joint management of foreign policy – is unworkable and that the government should direct foreign policy as well as EU policy. A lively late autumn looks in prospect.
David Arter
University of Tampere, Finland
david.arter@uta.fi