Competing Geographies of Sovereignty, Regionality and Globalisation: The Politics of EU Resistance in Finland 1991–1994

Abstract

European integration is often naturalised, so that the movement of a particular state towards integration, or away from it, is understood as being underpinned by eternal and everlasting national forces. The political struggles within the EU applicant states have not inspired scholars to produce sensitive studies of the “national debates” carried on in applicant states, even though this is exactly the field of political action where politico-geographical categories such as national identity, sovereignty and security come to be enthusiastically articulated. This paper both seeks to explain the struggle over Finland's decision to join the EU by focusing on the argumentation of those actors who “lost” the political struggle, and introduces the geographies that the opponents of Finnish EU membership produced. It is therefore aimed at illustrating the politics that underlay the geographical articulations which referred to either “national identity” or “sovereignty”. The purpose of doing this is to trace the competing geographies involved in the Finnish EU struggle and to point out that they were indeed based on long historical traditions which competing political actors used as a source of legitimation in their political action. Most of the themes highlighted by the No-EU camp are prominent in contemporary EU debates, too.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the guest editors of this special issue, David Newman and the anonymous referees for their most constructive remarks on earlier versions of this paper.

Notes

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6. I am indebted to Dr. Christopher Browning for making this point.

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37. Perhaps the most notable exception was Jan-Magnus Jansson.

38. Towards the end of 2003, shortly after being defeated in a general election, Paavo Lipponen, long-term Prime Minister of Finland (1995–2003) and one of the strongest advocates of EU membership, critically evaluated a study by the present author which suggested that Finland's decision to join the EU in 1995 was legitimised in the national debate as much by using arguments concerning the national identity, geographical affiliation and the country's correct place on the political map of Europe as on the basis of “hard facts” dealing with the economic benefits of membership or realistic gains in terms of security. Lipponen denied the geographical basis of the decision, and also the allegation that the Finnish foreign policy elite had been divided during 1991–1994 into traditionalists who opposed membership, and westernisers who supported participation in the integration process. In his rather unusual response, Lipponen claimed that Finland's EU membership was nothing special or irrational from the perspective of the national orientation but was indeed a manifestation of rational reasoning based on the hard fact that “the whole history of Finland and the basic intention of the Finns has been orientation towards the West”. P. Lipponen, ‘Sami Moisio sivuuttaa täysin EU-jäsenyyttä puolustavien rationaaliset perustelut. Suomen ulkopolitiikka on ollut lännetystä’ Turun Sanomat 13.10.2003; cf. S. Moisio, Geopoliittinen kamppailu Suomen EU-jäsenyydestä [The geopolitical struggle for Finland's membership in the EU] (Turku: University of Turku 2003).

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45. cf. S. Marston, ‘The Social Construction of Scale’, Progress in Human Geography 24/2 (2000) pp. 219–242; A. Paasi, ‘Place and Region: Looking Through the Prism of Scale’, Progress in Human Geography 28/4 (2004) pp. 536–539.

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54. See A. S. Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation State (London: Routledge 2000).

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56. Hakalehto (note 51) pp. 200–248; K. Korhonen, Tämä maa ei ole kaupan (Kajaani: Kainuun Sanomat 1991).

57. H. Meinander, ‘Suomen itsenäisyys oli vain välivaihe’, Helsingin Sanomat (7 December 2003).

58. Moisio, ‘Finlandisation Versus Westernisation’ (note 35).

59. H. Hakovirta, Suomettuminen (Jyväskylä: Gummerus 1975).

60. Tiilikainen (note 43) pp. 155, 161.

61. M. Jakobson, ‘Suomen joustava puolueettomuus’, Helsingin Sanomat (11 April 1994); J-M. Jansson, ‘Euroopan unionin kehitys arveluttaa’, Helsingin Sanomat (1 September 1994).

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63. See A. Paasi, ‘Remarks on Europe's Transforming Meta-Geography’, Geopolitics 10/3 (2005) pp. 580–585.

64. This issue has been extremely prominent in the context of possible Turkish membership of the EU.

65. Korhonen (note 62) pp. 122–162.

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68. E. Pennanen, ‘Mikä ihmeen “Pohjolan yhteisö”?’, Helsingin Sanomat (27 September 1994); P. Kivelä, ‘Paavo Väyrysen vaihtoehtoa ei ole’, Helsingin Sanomat (19 April 1994); J. Iloniemi, ‘Pohjolaan Brysselin kautta’, Suomen Kuvalehti 34 (1992) pp. 30–31.

69. M. Kuus, ‘European Integration and the Discourse of National Identity in Estonia’, National Identities 3/1 (2001) pp. 5–19.

70. Ibid. p. 6.

71. Ibid. p. 15.

72. Cf. M. Kuus, ‘Towards Cooperative Security? International Integration and the Construction of Security in Estonia’, Millennium 31/2 (2002) p. 3.

73. J. Haikonen and P. Kiljunen (note 44) p. 280–281.