The Northern Dimension initially got a chilly reception in Russia

Finnish EU Presidency and construction work around St. Petersburg brings new topicality to Lipponen's EU initiative

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By Heikki Aittokoski in Brussels
     
      Former Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen (now the Speaker of Parliament) may have written the speech himself, perhaps in his hotel room in Rovaniemi, and possibly straight into English. At least no copies of the text in Finnish are anywhere to be found these days.
      It was September 1997, and Lipponen was preparing to market one of his pet initiatives, the European Union's Northern Dimension.
      Finland and Sweden had joined the EU more than two years earlier, in January 1995. "The Union has in this fashion taken on a northern dimension", declared Lipponen on September 15th, at a meeting of Barents Region countries entitled "Barents Region Today, Dreams and Realities".
     
The initiative had been carefully prepared. Apparently at the turn of the year 1996/1997, those close to Lipponen already knew that the Northern Dimension would shortly be introduced.
      What it involved was a kind of framework programme designed to bring the European Union and Russia closer together, and to address specific regional issues. Advance marketing of the idea went ahead in the EU member-states and in Russia.
     
Having broached the subject in Rovaniemi, Lipponen put matters formally on the table a few months later, at the European Council summit in Luxemburg the following December. The idea naturally received the blessing of the EU-15, since it had already been marketed to the individual members.
      Nevertheless, something went wrong. Even though the groundwork for the Northern Dimension had also been done in Moscow, the Russian side was not overly enthusiastic about the whole idea.
      In fact that would be an understatement. In 1998, the Russians - at least on the civil servant level - were even actively annoyed by the way things were going.
      Representatives of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation took a very chilly view of the matter. They suspected that the idea behind the Northern Dimension was merely to exploit ruthlessly Russia's massive natural resources.
     
This was not Lipponen's intention. The Northern Dimension was (and still is) an interesting sub-plot in the continuum that is Finnish foreign policy.
      The ND, as the insiders are wont to call it, was an attempt to bring Russia more tightly into cooperation with Europe, and in so doing to better Finland's position on the field.
      When Finland takes on the mantle of the rotating EU Presidency in July, the Northern Dimension will once again be on the agenda. In November or December, the intention is to get a new Action Plan ratified to replace the one due to run out at the end of this year.
     
Few people in Europe even know of the existence of the Northern Dimension, in spite of the fact that it has been noted down in the Union's files and documents. One very descriptive reaction was that of a Swedish EU correspondent, who on hearing the term Northern Dimension replied simply: "What dimension?"
      To Prime Minister Lipponen, the Northern Dimension was (and almost certainly remains) a matter of the heart. During his two terms at the head of the government it was constantly in the limelight.
      When a columnist from the Tampere daily Aamulehti let slip a punning headline that hinted at the slushy nature of the ND, Lipponen was stirred to anger. It was not the first occasion when the PM got palpitations from a newspaper article.
      The Speaker of Parliament's schedule did not permit an interview for the writing of this piece, according to an assistant. The request for a 15-minute telephone interview was made on Tuesday last. Lipponen would have been available to come to the phone only in June.
     
The Northern Dimension has never really taken off, in the sense that the term would have achieved a modicum of familiarity in Europe.
      In fact the entire edifice was in danger of collapsing in 2003 at the point when Lipponen found himself having to part with the Prime Minister's job after the March parliamentary elections.
      The post was taken first by Anneli Jäätteenmäki and then by Matti Vanhanen on Jäätteenmäki's resignation, and the Prime Minister's Office was populated by new Centre Party staffers who were not initially overly interested in matters concerning the European Union.
      A good deal of brainstorming went on within the PM's Office and the Foreign Ministry over whether the Northern Dimension should be said to have "served its purpose" or whether it should be kept active.
      A clear majority of those taking part came down on the side of continuing with the initiative.
     
The Northern Dimension has often come in for criticism for having little concrete form, in the sense that nobody really knows what its contents are.
      The most tangible achievement to emerge from the venture is the sewage treatment plant in St. Petersburg, which was opened in September 2005 in a ceremony attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Finnish President Tarja Halonen, and Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson.
      When Lipponen launched the Northern Dimension, the then Foreign Minister Halonen did not apparently have a key role in the process.
      The St. Petersburg treatment plant would have been completed without the Northern Dimension, but by all accounts it would have taken a good deal longer.
     
Vladimir Putin is a local lad from St. Petersburg, and in this respect the Northern Dimension would now be able to tap into a useful connection.
      In recent years, the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland, including St. Petersburg, has taken on an increasingly important position, in part because Russia has built a large oil harbour at Primorsk, formerly known as Koivisto when the area was still in Finnish hands.
      The Baltic Sea (and by inference the Gulf of Finland) is now Russia's most important oil shipment conduit, and the Gulf has any number of significant energy sector projects going on along its eastern and southern shoreline (see attached article from 26.5.2006).
     
As oil prices have soared, energy has become a magic word.
      Even though people can be of differing opinions as to the merits of the Northern Dimension, in one respect at least Paavo Lipponen was clearly ahead of his time.
      In September 1997 in Rovaniemi, he said: "The northern regions are sparsely populated and the climate is harsh. The area has a wealth of natural resources, including the world's largest deposits of natural gas and oil, which have a strategic significance for the Union."
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 25.5.2006

More on this subject:
 FACTFILE: "Positive mutual dependency"

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Halonen and Putin discuss environment in St. Petersburg (23.9.2005)
  Gulf of Finland an increasingly important conduit to the West for Russia (26.5.2006)

Links:
  EU: Northern Dimension
  Barents Euro-Arctic Council
  IV Northern Dimension Ministerial Meeting, 21.11.2005: Press Release (.pdf file)

HEIKKI AITTOKOSKI / Helsingin Sanomat
heikki.aittokoski@hs.fi