Interview Qa Format

Q: What is the core idea of your book and how does it relate to the liberal world order? [00:00:00]

Interviewer: It's about international institutions, rule of law, norms, and basically the liberal world order that existed. My final point, if we want to preserve the liberal world order, we need to give agency to those countries around the world which feel that the current order was built 80 years ago in the image of the West and especially the United States. So give more power to the rest of the world because I still think that there are more multilateralists in this world than there are transactionalists. So this is the big idea of the book and in many ways a defense of the liberal world order and of course of open societies as well.

Q: You're positioning yourself against the tide of history on a lot of these different areas. You're a liberal in a world where there is a kind of big political movement against liberalism, you're a multilateralist in a world where power politics is increasingly defining how events take place, and you say that you're a proud Atlanticist in a world where the meaning of the West is kind of fundamentally changing. How do you find a way of reconciling the world that you want to live in with the one that you're having to operate in on a daily basis? [00:00:00]

Interviewer: Yeah, I mean, so there's one thing I say in the book and I've said out publicly as well and also in a foreign affairs piece which I published a little while back. And it's that in foreign policy it's important that you deal with a world that exists, not what you want to exist. And for that framework I then came up a few years back with this concept of values-based realism which essentially means that you stay true to your values. Democracy, in my case democracy, freedom, human rights, fundamental rights, protecting minorities, rule of law, supporting the international world order. But at the same time you're realistic that you cannot solve all the world's problems like conflicts or climate change or AI only with like-minded countries. So you need to come together somewhere in a place to deal with it. I have to admit that when I crafted values-based realism I wasn't really thinking about having to do it with the United States. But I have to admit that there is an element of that. So it gives me space. And it's not a doctrine as such but it's an instrument to take us over this period of transition. I know Mark Carney talked about rupture and he might be right. So you've converted Mark Carney but how do you get beyond that? It's kind of the biggest achievement in my life. Mark Carney quoting values-based realism. But no, I mean it's kind of the idea is then you have to ask yourself the question, okay, how do you do this? Well, a good starting point in my mind is another instrument I try to outline there which is dignified foreign policy. Because I feel that, you know, we have a lot of conversation about history, about a post-colonial world, about colonialism. And we always look back into history for examples on how we have been treated. So my take, and of course I come from a rather inoffensive country with a limited colonial past, which means that it gives me kind of street cred to do that. So I talk about dignified foreign policy. In other words, you have to behave towards the people that you want to work with in a respectable way, which seems to be lacking a little bit in the world right now as well, I have to admit.

Q: So we've been through this extraordinary psychodrama over the last couple of weeks around Greenland. I think without a doubt in my mind it's the biggest transatlantic crisis that we've seen since the, at least Suez. It looks like things are kind of being resolved. But I think it is quite important to take some lessons from what's happened over the last period of time. What do you think the main lessons are? [00:00:00]

Interviewer: That we live in an unpredictable world and there will be curveballs coming at you in foreign policy virtually every day. You know, I don't remember Davos, and I've been here 11 times, where in the first 21 days of the year we've had Venezuela, we've had Ukraine, we've had Greenland, we've had Iran, we've had Gaza, just to name five conflicts that have been tossed around. So, you know, we, we, we just have to take these curveballs one at a time. In the Greenland issue, right in the beginning when it started, you had two camps. You had those who, in Europe, who wanted to de-escalate, and then those who wanted to escalate to de-escalate. And I think most of us sort of worked in, in both of these spheres, so we were looking for instruments which would try to tone down the language by threatening escalation on, on different types of measures that the European Union has. But the key for me was to look at three possible outcomes or scenarios. One was good, one was bad, and one was ugly. The good one was that we would get an off-ramp and then a process which would strengthen Arctic security. A bad one would be an escalation in tariff wars, and an ugly one would be a declaration of military intervention in Greenland. And I think in the past three to four days, where we pretty much worked around the clock with Mark Rutte and Juna Stöhr and American senators and others, we were able to escalate to de-escalate and end up in zone number one. So, good outcome. But at the same time, you know, I can't say that this won't have an effect. Of course it does, because one of the key principles of the international order and how you treat alliances is that you respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each and every one of us. But, you know, we were able to deal with it short term, and now we have to have a look what we come up with long term.

Q: So, what do you think, the short term lesson is that you need a mix of showing that you're serious by filling the vacuum, both militarily with threatening to use countermeasures. And frenetic diplomacy. It's just, you just have to work the phone, and you have to do it behind the scenes. And in terms of the longer term questions, I mean, you're a very passionate European. You've worked for the EU institutions as well as for your own government. You've been part of this fundamental transformation of Finnish identity from being a kind of neutral country to being one of the most passionate defenders of European sovereignty and of the EU. What do you think Europeans need to do now in order to make sure they can be sovereign in this new world that we've been talking about? [00:00:00]

Interviewer: The first, just general observation is, people don't realise this. Finland is actually the only Nordic country which is 100% EU member, in the sense that we are in the EU. No opt-outs. Exactly. We don't, you know, we're in the EU and we don't have any derogations. And I think that the original decision for us to join the union in 1995 in a referendum was based on security, though we didn't want to talk about it at the time. You know, we never wanted to be alone again. So we did that. And of course on NATO, which I wish we would have joined much earlier, we ended up joining it also because, you know, attacked Ukraine. So what's my advice to my European friends? That is to say that don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. We've been in transatlantic crisis before. You mentioned the Suez Canal. You know, France left NATO. There has actually been regime change or elections have changed leaders in Germany because of placement of different types of military equipment in Germany because of the transatlantic relationship. So I think be pragmatic, use the value space, be true to your own values. So that means that you look for places where you can cooperate with the United States and the current administration. The war in Ukraine is an obvious one. NATO is another one. In my case, icebreakers. Probably not in the case of the rest of you, but we work with the American administration on technology. We work with minerals, but at the same time, you know, we can't do it naively. You know, we have to be cognizant of the fact that there is a lot of movement in the transatlantic partnership right now. But fortunately, Finland's bilateral relations with the U.S. is really good. So we are in a good place. But when you do that, realize that there are going to be areas where you're simply going to disagree. And you can tell that either publicly, which some people do, or then privately, which I do. So it could be issues linked to international institutions and American withdrawal from the multilateral system. Or it could be on U.S. unilateral action. It could be on climate change. It could be on how we defend democracy, both at home and abroad. It certainly was on Greenland, where, you know, you don't have to be an expert of international relations to understand why Finland staunchly supports Denmark and Greenland. So you just have to be open in this relationship. And when you do that, I think there are three levels. One is, of course, for me, direct contact with the president. But I have no illusions. I mean, Trump whisperer, nice, but, I mean, you know, I whisper text and most of the time he doesn't listen. So, you know, so be realistic about it. Second level is people close to Trump. And the third level is actually the first branch of government, Senate and Congress in general. So you just have to, you know, work very pragmatically at it and believe that this transatlantic partnership will survive.

Q: So, before we all became experts on Greenland and Greenlandic security, the biggest European security question was about Ukraine and its future. And that is something which is very much still on the cards. And we hear that Steve Witkoff is going to fly off from Davos to Moscow. And Jared Kushner. And Jared Kushner as well. You've been intimately involved in every single stage of the negotiations and discussions around Ukrainian security. How do you see the situation at the moment? [00:00:00]

Interviewer: Well, I think probably two remarks on that. One of the peace process and one of the narrative of the war. So on the peace process, I'm carefully optimistic in the sense that ever since, to be honest, Jared Kushner came in, the process became much more concrete. So, yes, there was the 28-point plan. But if you look at what happened after G20 in three different cities, Geneva, Berlin and Paris. In Geneva, we had national security advisors from the U.S., from Ukraine and from Europe trying to suss out and bring it down to 20 points. Then in Berlin, we had a number of European leaders and then Kushner and Witkoff who came to, you know, look at common landing zones. And then in Berlin on the 5th of December, we had a meeting of the coalition of the willing. And in a broad perspective, I think, you know, we're almost there. So we have pretty much five plus two documents which have to do with the 20-point plan, security guarantees, the prosperity plan, a sequencing plan and a few others. So the good news is that Europe, Ukraine and the United States is on the same page here. Now, my second point is that there seems to be a narrative that Ukraine is losing this war. And I simply don't buy that. And we have enough information and intelligence to back this up as well. But it's a Russian narrative which has been also floated a lot in the U.S. The first question you have to ask yourself, what were the strategic aims of Putin? Number one was to take over Ukraine and make it Russian. Well, Ukraine is going to become a member of the European Union. Number two was to prevent NATO enlargement. Well, Finland and Sweden joined because of Russia's war of aggression. And that basically doubles the border of NATO with Russia. So another failure. The third aim was to avoid the remilitarization of Europe. Now we're spending up to 5 percent of our GDP on defense expenditure. So from and on top of that, you look at Russian projection of power in Iran, loss, Syria, loss, Venezuela, loss. What the United States was able to do in Venezuela in 12 hours in an operation is what the Russian military wanted to do in Ukraine with total failure. So, you know, don't buy into this narrative that Russia is somehow winning this war. And if you look at it from a military perspective, what is going on right now is remarkable. Not only is Ukraine holding forward, the advancement of Russian forces is less than a percentage point in the past two years. So, you know, of territory. So what was acquired was kind of acquired from 2014 to before the war began. I mean, it's a really slow war of attrition. And the cost of that, just to Russia in December, 34,000 dead. Dead. So for what? For claiming that you took Kupiansk when you didn't and you claim it twice and you didn't twice? So people are saying that Russia wants to continue the war because they want more territory. That's rubbish. Russia has to continue the war because this war is too big for Putin to fail. When you add on to that, that the Russian economy is in shambles, which means they're not going to be able to pay their soldiers, which means zero growth, end of reserves, interest rates and inflation in double digits. So Putin cannot afford to end this war. This is my big worry. So what do we need to do? We continue to support Ukraine. We continue to put pressure on Russia. That's the only way in which we can get a deal. This week will be important. There's Moscow today and then there'll be Ukrainian, Russian and American national security advisors or negotiators in the Arab Emirates for two days after that. So, you know, have faith. Ukraine is going to win this war.

Q: So you were saying that Ukraine will join the European Union. It's definitely one of the points in the 20 points. And there is talk of setting a date in the very near future by which Ukraine will join. But there is this paradox. On the one hand, from a security perspective, it's totally necessary and clear. It's an existential issue to integrate Ukraine into the European Union. But from a political perspective, it's extraordinarily difficult to envisage how it can join in the way that other countries join. How do you, you've, unlike any other European leader, you've written extensively in the academic realm on differentiated integration and thinking about the EU in a much more complicated way. How do you square those two circles? [00:00:00]

Interviewer: Yeah, I guess that's a little bit nerdy. So I did my PhD on flexible integration. So the concept and idea that not everyone needs to do everything at the same time. And a concept which we've seen throughout the history. Which everyone apart from Finland seems to be using. Exactly. We're in the core of Europe all the time. So it's in a concept such as multi-speed and variable geometry and et cetera. So my big thinking here is that there's nothing that unifies Europe more than pressure. And now that pressure is coming from both the East and the West. And this means that European Union enlargement has become strategic and existential rather than legalistic and juridical. So we're going to start seeing a more flexible Europe. For instance, I now don't differentiate, even though I'm a member of the European Union, with the work that I do with the United Kingdom and Prime Minister Starmer. Or especially the 10 conversations I have with the Prime Minister of Norway every week. Or the work that we do with Iceland, even though they're not members of the EU. So then you come to the question of, okay, how do you integrate it into the system? And I think that, and I hear just for everyone who, in the Finnish constitution, president does foreign policy and commander in chief, prime minister does the EU. So I don't want to step on the toes of the prime minister here, so I'm not going to give you any dates. But I think what's going to happen is that the union is going to start looking at enlargement from a different perspective. It's probably going to turn the whole concept of enlargement around. So instead of you negotiating 35 chapters and 100,000 pages of a key communautaire, you are granted membership. And then you start getting the rights of that membership as you close these chapters. And I think that could be a way out for Ukraine. I'm not saying it's going to be easy because, you know, Ukraine has, what, over 40,000 inhabitants. The agriculture market is bigger than all of Europe combined. But at the same time, it has 800,000 men and women in the military. So I think when Ukraine joins the European Union, the military power of the European Union is basically going to double or triple overnight. So it has a lot of issues. But then there are going to be issues about, you know, countries organizing a referendum about enlargement and things like that. So it's not going to be easy. Enlargement is always, it's about three things. You know, it's about, well, absorption on three things. One is the institutions, can they absorb? Two is budget, can it be absorbed? And three is policies, can it be absorbed? But I think it would be a travesty and strategic geopolitical mistake if Ukraine were not members of the European Union.

Q: And what do you think the implications will be for other countries outside the EU, like the UK, Norway? [00:00:00]

Interviewer: Well, as I've said, Mark, about the UK, it took you seven years to negotiate yourself out of the EU. It'll take you seven years to regret it and then seven years to negotiate yourselves back in.

Q: The other lesson I would add to your list, President, is that it does matter to have somebody from one of the Western countries to put very clearly on the table, like you have done, and you've brought Mark Carney to do that with you, to recognize the rupture. Because without that, then the rest of the world and what the rest of the world has been saying doesn't land until one of you accompany that message. Mark asked you what that looked like in practice, and you referred to a more dignified foreign policy. But can I push a little bit further? Within the context of Sudan and Myanmar and Haiti, what does that actually look like in practical terms as well? And I don't want to look back in history, but I think a number of the rest of the world were very concerned about the variations of silence over Venezuela. And you've just underlined principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity as well. The challenge was that not everybody also supports Maduro. That's the challenge, but nonetheless, the principle still holds. Thank you. [00:00:00]

Interviewer: Yeah. Okay. No, it's a super good question, and thank you for all the reports that you and your team write in the crisis group. I try to read as many of them as I possibly can. I think the three examples that you brought forward, Sudan, Myanmar, and Haiti, are examples of what happens when we are focused on other crises, whether it's on Venezuela. Whether it's on Ukraine, whether it's on Greenland, whether it's on Iran, or whether it's on Gaza. And I try to, and I raise it in the book, not only in the part where I talk about the global south, I mean, how can we not talk about Sudan, which is basically probably the most atrocious conflict that we have. Myanmar, completely forgotten. And we're talking about a country of, what, 50, 55 million people, where over half are now living in poverty, and there's no such thing as human rights, fundamental rights being there. And Haiti, same thing. I personally find that I try to deal with as many conflicts as I possibly can, but in my mind in foreign policy, there are things that I can say which will be based on my values, and then there are things and conflicts where I can do, like, for instance, on Ukraine. So I try to, you know, pick my battles, but there's a legitimate claim on that. On Venezuela, complicated, because on one hand, there's the element of breaking international law. I mean, you just can't go in and remove a leader. On the other hand, you're going, well, removing Maduro, is he a legitimate leader? You know, so it's extremely complicated. I have to admit, in this particular case, I think values-based realism is a wonderful tool.

Q: The book needs to be translated into Chinese. Yeah, but I want to focus on the European political atmosphere ahead, because for the drama that you've mentioned for the past 21 days, it should be like a wake-up call for European and the so-called European strategic autonomy. But would you worry that in the years ahead, maybe the rise in populism or the isolationist emotion across Europe might take apart the foundation for either European unity or the foundation for calling for further integration and the strategic autonomy in Europe? And another follow-up question is that... [00:00:00]

Interviewer: Yeah, I think, first of all, I mean, I'll give it telegraphically. I do think that the pressure that we are now seeing coming from the United States and also coming from Russia will actually lead to deeper integration, probably more strategic autonomy or whatever you want to call it and however you want to define it, and also to an enlarged Europe. But there's another thing that it will lead to, and that is Europe looking also elsewhere. So we're kind of hedging or de-risking a little bit like Mark Carney said in his speech, you know. Canada is 70 percent dependent on trade with the U.S. We are not in that situation. But we used to talk about de-risking from China. I don't hear that too much anymore, if you know what I'm saying. We're talking about de-risking elsewhere, which is an interesting phenomenon in all of this. And I think, you know, Europe is doing the right geopolitical thing. I mean, a deal with Mercosur, I won't have issue with what the European Parliament decided on that yesterday, but nevertheless, moving on, or a free trade agreement with India. So you're going to start seeing Europe and other players. So this is in very many ways. I believe it is Europe's moment. And you are going to start seeing that. And I think we can cope with it fairly well. And just one final point. Europe used to be considered to be slow and legislative and bureaucratic and regulatory. Way too stable. And right now, people are looking for stability. So I actually think that a lot of investment will start coming into Europe as well. I mean, I'm talking about the EU-U.S. thing. So I'm actually quite optimistic about the future of Europe because of COVID, because of Ukraine, because of energy, because of the U.S.

Q: My question to you is, could you tell me, to the point you mentioned, to your mind, in navigating diplomacy, what is the utility of – because you said it's better if you call again and if you do it in private. So what's the utility of doing anything in public? And how has it been for you navigating it and how have you been able to develop the skills to navigate this so well when it's a complicated environment? [00:00:00]

Interviewer: Well, I mean, just to frame it, I think in foreign policy you have values, interests, and power. And smaller players, like myself, we have values and interests, but power becomes influence. And that's where diplomacy comes in. And I think we look at diplomacy – and we should look at diplomacy based on two pillars. One pillar is your traditional state-to-state relations. You know, what is the relationship between Finland and India? You know, values, interests, power, geography, history, culture. So that's one part, state-to-state, very formal. The other part is personal. What kind of relationship do I have with the president of the United States or the prime minister of India? And then I, as a president, have to make the judgment. What are the things I want to say out in the public and what are the things that I can deal with in private? For me, this is almost like a family matter or friend matter. It's a question of trust. I mean, some things you just can't say out in the public. But if you have a good relationship, then you can say them directly. And for me, that's not appeasement. Quite the contrary. It's respect or it's using dignified foreign policy. And then sometimes we use the public arena for diplomacy. And it is an extremely important tool in foreign policy. As we can see, I mean, look, the president of the United States uses his true social as one of the most powerful foreign policy instruments that we have ever seen before. So I'm not denying that. But it doesn't all happen in the public sphere. It can happen in a private one as well. So if I was a student now, I'd be looking at the sort of juncture of these two. Super interesting. Great.