The EU needs someone to stand up for it

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By Janne Virkkunen
     
      Since 1992, the Finnish Business and Policy Forum (EVA) has studied the attitudes of Finns towards European integration. The sequence of reports put out by EVA is sufficiently long to provide us with some useful insights into the changing points of view.
      At the time of Finland's accession into the Union in 1995, interest in the EU was naturally great, but as the novelty wore off and membership became an everyday matter, we have seen a growing critical tone.
      EVA's latest report does not give cause for any great concern, but views have sharpened slightly. Finns are now somewhat more negative in their attitudes relative to earlier readings.
     
When the study asked how the respondents feel about the country's membership of the EU, 36 per cent took a positive view of the matter and 35 per cent felt that it had a negative impact. Nearly 30 per cent took the view that Finland should pull out of the European Union.
      The EVA numbers should give Finnish decision-makers food for thought, since the public's attitudes towards integration can very well be influenced if only there is a will to do so.
      The EU's Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has done his best, but others are required to step up to the plate. European integration needs people willing to speak on its behalf in Finland, since the Union is the most important working environment for Finnish politics.
      Even the present government has not exactly shone in this respect, as it relates to the fundamental nature and import of integration for Finland and for the continent as a whole.
     
According to the EVA researchers, the Finns are critical because they feel they have to adhere to EU rulings that they have no need for.
      The costs of membership are seen as excessive relative to the benefits gained. In the view of a substantial majority (as many as 72 per cent of respondents), the influence of the large member countries has become even more pervasive of late - and this is exactly what has happened.
      The Finns' own scope for shaping matters has by contrast been seen to have diminished.
      Only a small minority regard Finland's EU policies as having been a success. The public are clearly yearning for an injection of greater national self-interest and determined behaviour on behalf of our own needs (nearly 90 per cent felt this way). Three out of four Finns want a more active policy towards the EU.
     
The somewhat sceptical attitudes of the Finns towards integration do not come as any surprise, but they are unfortunate, since integration has been a considerable success story for the European continent.
      It has brought and facilitated stability and prosperity in Europe. Through integration, Europe was liberated from the entrenched antagonisms of the Cold War and has embraced democracy in peaceful fashion.
      Yes, there are still tasks to be completed, as the developments in the Balkans demonstrate. Mistakes have been made along the way, too, which naturally fuels the public's suspicions towards integration.
     
The Union expanded in 2004 into the Baltic States and the eastern parts of Central Europe. Opposition to this enlargement has subsided somewhat and now stands at around 30 per cent.
      At the same time, misgivings over Turkish entry into the EU have grown and are now expressed by just over half the respondents.
      The numbers supporting Turkish membership have likewise declined, and now only one in five are staunchly in favour. Fewer people object to the idea of Ukraine's joining the European Union at some point than oppose membership of Islamic Turkey.
     
Those in managerial positions and senior clerical workers join forces with students in being the most ardent supporters of integration.
      Followers of the Greens and the National Coalition Party are also more favourable towards integration than others. Equally, support for the idea of European integration is low in rural areas and grows in roughly direct proportion to the size of the city in which people live.
      Uusimaa, by far the most densely populated region of Finland, is also the area most favourable to integration. In equal measure, the level of education of the respondent is a strong indicator of how favourably he or she relates to integration.
     
The EVA study paints an overall picture in which Finns do not come across as being in any way particularly open to the changing of the world around them.
      Criticism of globalisation is also slightly up from the last study.
      The Finns still feel that Swedes are their best neighbours, and relations with Russia are regarded as important.
     
The clear message to decision-makers is nevertheless that it will require a good deal more work to bring Finns to an understanding of the sort of world in which we now live.
      Then again, the report indicates that the European Union needs to pull its socks up so that the entire subject of integration would be approached in a more positive light.
      The latest EU summit ended in Brussels on Friday in a rather fudged, roundabout fashion. There are too many broad declarations in the Union's operations, and too few of the sort of concrete results that would make people sit up and take notice.
     
When a Finn feels that the EU is too distant and represents a process that rather hinders than helps his or her life, that individual is not necessarily so far off the mark.
      One of the problems of the European Union has been that the voice of the individual EU citizen is not heard in the bureaucratic corridors and meeting-rooms of Brussels.
     
European integration needs more people to speak up for it, since integration is not and never will be merely a top-level process.
      Integration shapes the lives of every citizen, and hence it would be better for all if more and more people were interested in the subject.
      Finland had its second and latest turn as President of the European Council in the latter half of 2006, but the efforts of this stint at the helm do not seem to have rubbed off on public attitudes to any great extent.
      The worst thing that could happen to a small country like Finland would be to become relegated to a position of little or no significance in the Union.
      Finland should purposefully seek out friends for itself from within the other members. The allies of choice can perfectly well change according to the subject on the table, but it is difficult to find friends as a matter of routine pencil-pushing. It will require skill and expertise.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 16.3.2008
     
The writer is editor-in-chief of Helsingin Sanomat


Previously in HS International Edition:
  EVA survey: Finns critical of EU, oppose joining NATO (12.3.2008)

Links:
  EVA Attitude and Value Survey 2008

JANNE VIRKKUNEN / Helsingin Sanomat
janne.virkkunen@hs.fi