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ABSTRACT
The economic crisis in Europe has resulted in an unprecedented narrative battle in the traditionally consensus-driven Finland. National stereotypes and prejudices have been employed to situate Finland on the shifting political and moral map of Europe with the North–South division taking an important role in the narrative battle. Using a narrative approach to policy debates and following Erik Ringmar's work, this article analyses how Finland's European role has been narratively constructed with romantic, tragic, and satirical interpretations featuring in the debate.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Johanna Tuulia Vuorelma is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick.
Notes
1 Nykypäivä is affiliated to the National Coalition Party, a centre-right party belonging to the European People's Party in the European Parliament. Suomenmaa is affiliated to the Centre Party, an agrarian party belonging to the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament. Vihreä Lanka is affiliated to the Green Party.
2 For example, Aamulehti writes that ’Finland is one of the stars in the Commission report’, 13 September Citation2011; Allan Rosas (Turun Sanomat, 19 September Citation2011) notes that Finland is among the model pupils in the EU with ‘Greece famously being the most sinful’ (‘suurin syntipukki’); and Esa Stenberg (Turun Sanomat, 28 September Citation2011) writes that Finland received positive fame for fulfilling the EMU criteria among the best.
3 ‘Niemeläinen’ was Pekka Sauri's, a Green League politician, pseudonym in Vihreä Lanka between 2000 and 2012.
4 The disease metaphor is ubiquitous in the policy debate. For example, Riikka Manner (Citation2011), a Finnish MEP, writes that ‘Barroso was expected to present miraculous medicine to cure Europe's acute state’. Suomenmaa, 30 September 2011. Also Timo Kalli, a Centre Party MP, uses the disease metaphor to argue that the current medicine taken for the EU's debt crisis, financial aid, should be abandoned and notes that ‘a competent and good doctor can rewrite the prescription if the patient is not cured with the existing medicine. (Kontio, Citation28 September Citation2011)
5 See Eurostat http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tec00001&plugin=1 (5 January 2016).
6 See http://www.treasuryfinland.fi/en-US/News_and_publications/News_archive/Fitch_Ratings_affirms_AAA_rating_for_Fin(48130) (5 January 2016).
7 More on the idea of market civilisation, see Bowden and Seabrooke (Citation2006), Gill (Citation1995), and Kangas (Citation2013).
8 Other examples of the war metaphors are Veikko Räntilä writing in Aamulehti that in South-Europe there is a ’wide minefield’, 24 September Citation2011, and Toni Viljanmaa writing in Aamulehti (5 May Citation2011) that Jyrki Katainen, the then prime minister, being ‘ambushed’.
9 ’Suu säkkiä myöten'.
10 This image is a useful political tool in Finland where, according to Juho Saari, Professor in Sociology at the University of Eastern Finland, the least empathy on a societal level is felt towards the debt burdened because they are seen as having brought their misery upon themselves. As such, only a minimum amount of public money should be spent to assist them. Nykänen (Citation2013).
11 Also Anneli Jäätteenmäki, an Alde MEP, employed the term when arguing that
it is not the responsibility of the states that have managed their economies well to pay the bills and debts of the scoundrel states. It is time to admit that Greece cannot pay all its bills and letting it declare bankruptcy is for the benefit of Greece and the whole of Europe. (Suomenmaa, 16 September Citation2011)
12 More specifically, it is Greece and Ireland that are the ’weakest links’.
13 ’Talouden saneeraus on Kreikassa savolaisittain aloittamista vaille valmis.’
14 Others employing the ship metaphor include Juho Rahkonen who asks whether Greek economy will sink to the bottom of the Aegean Sea, Aamulehti, 15 September 2011; and the main editorial in Helsingin Sanomat: ‘While watching horrifyingly Greece to sink, we have forgotten to follow the economic development in Ireland’, 9 September Citation2011.
15 Also Sirpa Pietikäinen argues that Finland's EU position has not suffered because of the Greek collateral demand. For her, Finland does not have enough power to bring down the whole Eurozone, as many critics have warned. The whole debate, according to her, has reflected Finland's prevailing ‘what do they think about us’ syndrome (Niemitalo, 3 September Citation2011).
16 Sami Metelinen argues in his counter narrative in Nykypäivä (17 June Citation2011) that it is politically and morally right for Germany to lead the way in Europe: ‘Why economically the most successful state would not take the leading responsibility for Europe's future?’
17 More on the theory of carnivalesque, see Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his world, transl. Helene Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008).
18 A newcomer in Finland's mainstream politics, the Finns party is a nationalist, EU critical party that belongs to the Europe of Freedom & Democracy (EFP) group in the European Parliament.
19 Also the media has criticised the governmental EU policy. Referring to the demand for the Greek collateral as the then Finance Minister ‘Urpilainen's fruitless crusade’, Aamulehti writes in its main editorial that the governmental approach to the crisis has been too narrow and without any vision (7 September Citation2011). It has obsessively pushed through with the demand as if nothing else matters for Finland. In another editorial it notes that the government is now imprisoned by the collateral demand because ‘the Coalition Party needs to maintain the collateral façade set up by Urpilainen (SDP) as giving up on the demand could mean a death sentence to Katainen's (KOK) coalition government that was half forcibly formed (Aamulehti, 3 September Citation2011). Also Riitta Järventie writes that ‘amid the collateral battle the government has managed Finland's own economic matters with a left hand (a metaphor for being careless)’ (Aamulehti, 8 September 2011).
20 Also Helsingin Sanomat (13 March Citation2011) writes in its main editorial that as a result of the financial aid to Greece ‘the forest fire was avoided but the marshland fire does not get extinguished’.
21 See for example Vähämäki (2011).
22 The are several biblical metaphors in the narrative battle. For example, Turun Sanomat (25 February Citation2011) writes in its main editorial that ’in the Brussels meeting the EU leaders need the wisdom of Solomon’. Or as Anni Lassila (Citation2011) writes in her Helsingin Sanomat column in reference to Greece's debts, Erkki Liikanen, head of the Finnish Central Bank, ‘denied three times’, a biblical reference to the denial of Peter.