Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja’s policy speech at the Annual Meeting of Finnish Heads of Mission: Continuity and global responsibility

Press release 203/2011
22 August 2011

In opening the Annual Meeting of Finnish Heads of Mission in Helsinki on 22 August, Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja emphasised the continuity of foreign and security policy and global responsibility. In his view, citizens’ increased criticality is reflected in the Government’s EU policy, but “at the same time our commitment to the Union remains strong, as the EU is Finland’s most important site for exerting influence in international cooperation. The most important instrument in this is the Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, which we want to strengthen and which is most often supported even by citizens in Finland who otherwise take a critical view of the Union,” Tuomioja stated.

He considered that the economic crisis has weakened the EU’s position as an international actor: “The uppermost impression is a lacking ability to get a grip on the economy and to work out a solution to structural problems. At the same time as this weakens the EU’s global power of influence, it feeds turning inwards and nationalism in the Member States.”

Tuomioja said that many Western industrialised countries have to pay more attention to solving internal problems and must weigh economic conditions in dimensioning global activity and bearing responsibility. This, in turn, can lead to detrimental inward deflection and withdrawal from bearing international responsibility. “No longer can any single global economic actor reach or maintain a leading position where it can dictate its conditions for others. Such efforts only lead to unhealthy competition and, in the worst case, to conflicts.”

Tuomioja sees no other alternatives; everyone must be committed to multilateral cooperation: “All actors are bound to the essential condition of reaching sustainable development. Even in the best of cases, we may have only a few decades for adapting the actions of people and of the States they form worldwide to ecologically, socially and economically sustainable development.”

In Tuomioja’s view, the UN should be the primary forum steering global development. “Finland is ready to bear her responsibility in the United Nations, and we act to strengthen the legitimacy and operational capacity of the UN. To us, candidacy for a rotating seat on the Security Council is not a question of prestige; rather it is based on our wish, also at this site of influence, to implement active UN policy,” Tuomioja explained.

The Government Programme states that issues pertaining to better management of globalisation are a central target of Finland’s international cooperation. The Government strives for a fair distribution of the benefits of globalisation and to reduce the associated inequities and uncertainties and implement sustainable development. Tuomioja pointed out that “in promoting our agenda aiming at better management of globalisation, there is reason to act in open cooperation with civil society both domestically and internationally, and to put to use the relations we forged along the Helsinki Process with regard to globalisation and democracy.”

Additional information: Susanna Parkkonen, Press Attaché to the Minister, mobile tel. +358 50 377 5601, Director of Communications Keijo Norvanto, mobile tel. +358 40 720 3983