Hornets | About Professor Marin’s Hornet speeches: Hardly any constitutional problem

To Tampere university political science professor Tapio Raunio Prime Minister does not see a constitutional problem Sanna Marini (sd) in Hornet comments.

Marin said during his trip to Kiev that “a discussion could be held” about handing over the Hornets to Ukraine.

The comments have drawn criticism because they appeared to be a departure that was not coordinated with the rest of the foreign policy leadership.

According to the Constitution, “Finland’s foreign policy is led by the President of the Republic in cooperation with the Government Council”.

Ruined leads a research project funded by the Academy of Finland, which analyzes the use of power by presidents in different parts of Europe.

In Finland, the power of the president has been narrowed by several changes since the 1980s. Power has passed to the parliament and the government.

The current constitution came into force in 2000. In 2012, it was specified that “the prime minister represents Finland in the European Council”.

According to Rauni, presidents have been surprised several times during the current constitution, according to newspaper reports.

“One of the members of the government, for example the minister of defense or foreign affairs, has said something that has surprised the president. This is not unique,” he says.

Ruined estimates that the majority of embezzlements will never come to light.

“It may be that over the years [tapaamisissa ulkomailla] there have been all kinds of messages that have not been coordinated between the president and the government. Therefore, it is difficult to say how many problems there are behind the scenes that never come into the public spotlight.”

According to Rauni, the idea of ​​co-leadership in the constitution is that the president and the government should always coordinate matters in important decisions.

“One can wonder if this is the case [Hornet-]the proposal to some extent significant or is it just that the prime minister presents some idea for discussion.”

Republic president Sauli Niinistö said himself in an interview with HS last Octoberthat he has “countless examples of how the government’s obligation to cooperate with the president has not been fulfilled”.

According to Niinistö, he has also delivered the Constitutional Law Committee’s report from 2016 to different governments on several occasions as a reminder.

The report states that “when forming a position on important foreign and security policy EU issues, the Government has the obligation to work in close cooperation with the President of the Republic”.

However, the Constitution does not obligate unanimity. So where is the difference between coordination and agreement?

“There is no clear answer to that, but hardly here [Marinin kommentissa] there is no constitutional problem. Personally, I wouldn’t freak out if the Prime Minister and the President presented different views. It belongs to politics”, says Tapio Raunio.

“We are used to this, that there must be one voice in foreign policy, and there must not be any divisions. When there is some kind of deviation, which can be interpreted as a detachment, it often creates quite a halo.”

Ruined reminds that it is often the presidents who have emphasized their own leadership in foreign policy.

According to him, recently it has been seen that the government is also defending its own plot of land.

“I think it’s good. Only if the government genuinely leads together with the president, the parliament’s parliamentary oversight of foreign policy will be realized.”

For example Juha Sipilä (middle) was considered to have remained as prime minister Niinistö’s shadow as a foreign policy actor.

“The good thing about these commotions is that, at best, they lead to a more principled discussion about this joint leadership. After all, we have a presidential election coming up soon. At that point, too, there is room for discussion about what kind of leadership the candidates are aiming for,” says Raunio.

After the start of the Russian attack in Ukraine, however, the foreign policy co-leadership has mainly worked well, according to Raunio.

“When there is a really big, serious crisis like this, it forces political decision-makers to focus on what is essential. There haven’t been many public outbursts. These have been relatively small bubbles.”