While en route to meet President Vladimir Putin earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron was asked whether “Finlandisation” could be a possible way of averting a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The term comes from Finland’s Cold War stance of being forced into neutrality in return for avoiding a Soviet invasion.
Although Macron did not use the term ‘Finlandisation’ himself, he said that the policy of neutrality was among “the models on the table” but warned that the situation cannot end up “in a no-man’s land, with no possibility of sovereignty or security” for Ukraine.
Nonetheless, the mention of Finlandisation provoked a strong response from many Finnish foreign-policy watchers, for whom the period represents a painful episode in the Nordic nation’s history.
What does “Finlandisation” mean, why is it contentious, and could it really offer a model for defusing the Ukraine crisis?
Forced neutrality
Under the terms of a 1948 “Friendship Treaty” between Helsinki and Moscow, Finnish leaders agreed to stay out of Western defence cooperation, especially with the US-led NATO alliance, and also imposed authoritarian policies to suppress anti-Soviet sentiment in Finland’s political and cultural spheres, notably through the media.
While the policy, now known as Finlandisation, was indeed successful in its aim of keeping Soviet tanks from crossing the 1,300 kilometre (800 mile) Finland-Russia border, the restricted independence that Finland endured is now seen by many Finns as a shameful period.
Offensive ‘f’ word
Although many Finns believe their country’s post-war leaders had little choice but to bend to Moscow’s will, the term “Finlandisation” has a mainly pejorative significance in the country today.
“In Finland when you say that someone has been Finlandised, it’s almost an insult, like you’re leaning more towards Russia than the west,” explains former prime minister Alexander Stubb, now a director at the European University Institute in Italy.
Many figures in media and politics during the Finlandisation years are now seen as having veered too enthusiastically into self-censorship in an attempt to please the Kremlin.
Since the Cold War, Finland has dropped any neutral stance to side very clearly with the West, joining the EU in 1995 and becoming a close partner — although not a full member — of NATO.
“We were a small country between a rock and a hard place”, thanks to the overbearing Soviet superpower next door, says Professor Teivo Teivainen of Helsinki University.
“Many people accept that Finlandisation was part of our history, we got over it,” he tells AFP.
“But suggesting it today, whether for Finland or Ukraine, is offensive” for many Finns, Teivainen says.
New meaning possible?
The mention of the idea that “Finlandising” Ukraine could help defuse tensions with Russia prompted strong reactions from a number of commentators.
Former PM Stubb warned on Twitter that “old terms for new situations rarely work,” although he later told AFP that he strongly doubted Macron would use such a term.
Meanwhile former Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves tweeted that “Finland would not have been considered a democracy” under Finlandisation, adding, “it was not pretty.”
In 1973 Finland’s parliament voted to extend the term of president Urho Kekkonen without an election, with the powerful leader going on to step down in 1982 after almost 26 years in office.
Stubb, who as Finland’s foreign minister was involved in mediating the 2008 ceasefire between Russia and Georgia, firmly rejects the idea that Finlandisation could represent the way out of the current impasse on the Ukrainian border.
“No great power, be that Russia or anyone else, should decide the line that Ukraine wants to take in its own security,” Stubb told AFP.
