Maimo Henriksson
Ambassador of Finland
Embassy of Finland in Stockholm
First the pandemic and then the Russian full-scale attack on Ukraine has had a big impact on the relations between Finland and Sweden. The pandemic taught the Nordic states that they need to cooperate when a crisis hits, because crises can be dealt with only together. Besides, many national measures have effects that stretch over the border. The pandemic also made it difficult for Finnish companies to establish themselves on distant markets. Thus, the neighbouring region became more attractive also from a business point of view. The pandemic and its lessons learnt thus had a significant effect on the relations between the Nordic countries, especially on the relations between Finland and Sweden.
When Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022 and took the war to a completely new phase, did this at the same time bring the relations between Finland and Sweden to quite a new level. It has rightly been analyzed, that the intensity in the contacts between the two countries has not been this high since World War II, when Sweden in many ways helped Finland in its fight against the Soviet Union.
The Russian invasion immediately led to security policy processes in both countries. These processes were characterized by close coordination. Ministers including the Prime Ministers, the Speakers of the Parliament, many sectoral ministers as well as delegations of all sorts met in spring 2022 as the two countries nationally started to prepare for decision making. Soon the key questions were: will both countries end up with the same conclusion i.e. to file in an application to join NATO? And when that started to become probable arouse the next question: will both countries be able to file in that application in a synchronized way? An outcome with one country within NATO and the other outside would complicate things not only for the two countries, but for NATO as a whole.
The political leadership in both countries managed to coordinate and synchronize so well, that Finland and Sweden handed in their membership applications to NATO at the same moment on Wednesday morning, 18 May 2022. Well, due to the French alphabetical order used within NATO was Finland’s application handed over to NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg eight seconds before the Swedish one…
Finland and Sweden had started to increase their defense cooperation already in 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea and the Russian war actions in Donbass. This cooperation was developed with the political instruction of “no limits”. In the new situation, work done during the past ten years has proved to be very useful. Finland and Sweden will continue this close defense cooperation including joint excercises also as NATO members, because such a smooth cooperation between two member states benefits NATO as a whole.
What we then have witnessed in autumn 2022 and now in 2023 is that quite many organizations - be it a ministry, an authority, a company or a university – try to identify its counterpart in the neighbouring country. The Finnish experts or leaders travel to Sweden and the Swedish ones travel to Finland. The goal is to make a joint analysis of the state of things, in order to be able to make up a joint crisis action program. The new geopolitical situation has taught us that we need to build up national and regional resilience. The pandemic in its turn taught us that crisis action programs cannot be national, they need to be joint programs. Finland needs joint plans above all with Sweden, but also with the other Nordic states.
In these days we must secure our logistical routes and the functionality of our transport and infrastructure, we need to ensure our energy resources and build up security of supply. We also have to have a certain level of self-sufficiency in agriculture – or make sure that we have a good division of labour with our neighbours. We need to have enough national extraction of key raw materials and an extensive enough national production of certain industrial items – or make sure that we have it together with our neighbours.
In light of all these processes it is no surprise that the new Finnish government in its program states that Sweden is Finland’s most important bilateral partner. These are not empty words – we are currently witnessing a never before seen stream of visiting Finnish ministers and delegations to Sweden. All the new ministers and parliamentary committees now want to visit Sweden.
The positive thing is that both countries have things to learn from each other. Finland has due to its history been strong in matters such as national defense and security of supply. Also energy, both nuclear power and wind power, have emerged as new themes where Finnish experiences interest Sweden. For some time already education has been an area of interest. Sweden in its turn can be a model for Finland what comes to robust state finances, the internationalization of companies and labour market mechanisms.
We are lucky to have each other, Sweden and Finland. I hope that also you know your counterpart in the neighbouring country!