Former Minister Salolainen to study impact of EU membership on Finland
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Former Minister of Trade and Industry Pertti Salolainen, who recently returned to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs after serving as Finland’s Ambassador to London, is to draft a study on the impact of Finland’s ten years of membership in the European Union.
Salolainen, and researcher Teija Tiilikainen, are to complete their report on the impact of EU membership by the summer.
Salolainen says that he will analyse EU membership in his capacity as "main negotiator and former politician", while Tiilikainen’s role will be that of a researcher.
Salolainen, a former chairman of the conservative National Coalition Party, served as Minister for Foreign Trade in the government of Esko Aho (Centre) in the early 1990s, and in that capacity, headed Finland’s negotiations on EU membership, partly along with Foreign Minister Paavo Väyrynen (Centre).
He became Ambassador to the UK in 1996, and from the beginning of this year he has worked at the European section of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
The initiative for the report came from the EU.
Similar analyses are to be drafted concerning Swedish and Austrian membership. Taking part in the drafting of the Swedish report is former Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, and Austria’s analyst is former Chancellor Franz Vranitsky.
The three have met for a seminar in Stockholm, and the next one, in February, will be in Helsinki, and a third later in the spring in Vienna.
After the analysis phase in the spring, Salolainen plans to write a review of some kind of Finnish EU membership. "It will probably not be a doctoral thesis - more likely, a societal assessment."
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 11.1.2005 - TODAY |
 Former Minister Salolainen to study impact of EU membership on Finland |
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