The coalition has occupied the key positions in foreign and security policy, but it does not eliminate contradictions, but moves them inside the coalition.
Alexander Stubb has resigned as a member of the coalition. It is customary because presidents want to represent the entire nation. However, the president cannot give up his background any more than a tiger can give up his stripes. Therefore, Stubb's election has started a discussion about the coalition's foreign policy line. In addition to the president, the coalition will also include the prime minister, foreign minister, defense minister and soon also Finland's EU commissioner.
The coalition's strong position in foreign and security policy has been compared to the center in the 1970s and to the Sdp from the 1990s to the beginning of the 2000s. Eastern relations and neutrality were at the center of the centrist foreign policy. In the line of the Sdp, for example, disarmament, development cooperation and the “feminist foreign policy” adopted from Sweden in recent years were emphasized.
For a long time, the core of the coalition's foreign and security policy was pro-Westernism and Finland's NATO membership. The core softened when President Sauli Niinistö, who has a coalition background, did not support membership and did not even want to discuss it. The situation led to the fact that for years the most important dividing line in foreign policy ran within the coalition rather than between the parties.
The line of the coalition has now become the main line of foreign policy. That doesn't mean that there aren't still differences of tone, also within the coalition.
Today, the difference between the old Finnish and the young Finnish ideological traditions of the coalition manifests itself in the way that there are conservatives with a more nationalistic orientation in the party as well as liberals with a more international attitude.
The conservatives ran for the presidential candidate from Defense Minister Antti Häkkä. Now they praise Stubb that, in their opinion, this has moved to a more realistic line than before. The liberal line is personified by Foreign Minister Elina Valtosee.
In December, Häkkänen and Valtonen bickered somewhat comically about who got to sign the DCA defense contract in Washington. New controversies may be coming when the handling of NATO affairs is divided between the president, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense.
Pin the resident campaign, Stubb was ready to allow the movement of NATO's nuclear weapons in Finland, and he did not intend to answer the calls of the Russian president. On the other hand, Stubb criticized the United States for supporting Israel too much and emphasized that the president's main task is to ensure the preservation of peace.
Balancing shows that Stubb, like his predecessor, strives to find a golden middle ground, where politics doesn't look like politics but a position of responsibility. The first task is to convince both Finns and those observing Finland from the outside that Finland's line will continue to be stable.
“
Like his predecessor, Stubb strives for a golden mean.
Stubb talks about his own “value-based realism”. The term is borrowed from the United States (principled realism). It is a deliberate paradox, where idealistic goals are promoted by realistic means. The expression describes the gray operating environment of today's world, while at the same time, with one convenient stroke, it combines the two different undercurrents of the coalition into a broad stream that everyone can interpret in their own way.
Jos politics is the art of the possible, foreign policy can be called the art of the impossible. Conflicts are managed by different means, not the least of which is word magic. Value-based realism resembles the “NATO option”, with which Finland tried for years to be somewhat pregnant.
In the world, the art of the impossible is practiced by trying to reconcile national interests on the one hand, and multilateral cooperation on the other. Defenders of a rules-based world order emphasize that everyone benefits when disputes are settled by agreement rather than war. Others say that everyone ultimately pursues their own interests, so Finland must do the same.
Stubb is an international idealist who has promised to put the interests of Finland before everything else. The boundary line of Finland's foreign policy used to run within the coalition, but in the future it may also run within the president's head.
The editorials are HS's positions on a current topic. The articles are prepared by HS's editorial department, and they reflect the journal principle line.
#Editorial #color #straight #coalition #foreign #policy #straight
