 Felly, yn ymgyrchau, yn ymgyrchol yma, hefyd yma hwnnw, maestrich gyda'r unig, a Professor Hannah O'Hannan, a'r unig yma. Mae'n gwybod i'r gweld o ymgyrchaf o ddefnyddio eu ddefnyddio eu ddefnyddio eu ddefnyddio o'r prosesol yma. Hefyd, hwnnw, hwnnw yma hwnnw o'r osbysau o'r programau hwnnw, ymgyrchaf ymgyrchaf eraill, o'r programau hwnnw o'r edrych o'r edrych o'r ysgol yma ymgyrchaf yma. ydych chi'n fwy o'r maes giants, yw'r uned a fyddai'r unigodd a'r ddweud o'r uned yn penedigion. A oeddwn ni'n ddweud am gyfwynghau arall i'r cyd-dau cyn'Draeth, am y ddweud yw awdurdodol yn ei ddweud. Felly, mae'n angen i ddweud o'r cyllid o'r cyd-dweud syddol yn cyfodol yn gyfodol yn y ddweud. Felly mae'n angen i ddweud o'r cyd-dweud o'r cyd-dweud o'r cyllid o'r cyd-dweud, a'r unrhyw gweithio newid yw'r Comisi yn y bydd y gweithio a'r ddechrau Gwyrdd-Deuces Cerddurellol i'r ffordd yw'r cynyddu'r ddechrau cyfrifiadau a'r llais o'r rhaglion cyrraedd yw'r unrhyw ar y llais o'r cyfrifiadau, oherwydd i'r cyfrifiadau sy'n cyfrifiadau i'r rhaglion cyrraedd efo'u gyfrifiadau perthio'r cyfrifiadau ac o'r cyfrifiadau i'r Rhaglion cyrraedd yw'r Rhaglion cyrraedd. Felly, first of all, thank you very much for having me and special thanks also to Ben for arranging such a nice trip and also such I think a stimulating stay for us in Dublin. I'm also really delighted to talk to you a bit about the Austrian perspective on European Security and Defense policy and when I was preparing for this talk I was really a bit thinking like, OK, when you think about what could Irish people be interested to hear about Austria. ac os ond meddwl dydyn ni wedi bod gwyfod suspicious interests a'r llwyiau yma sy'n gyffredig ysty Poeth pyrambaniaeth i fynd. A mae bod bod yn dur i'rpeoplenhaeth hwooseid ywir... ein bob ymo対r aug y maes yw'r awnig yw'r maes ar yบrenidol y maes sketches yw ac-gweld bod ar gyfer y maes chi eisiaw du rhyng-dath o ergodio rhain yn gyrtu darglwyd tarwydd o Pick CAD Awf yn lle hwoib yn y llyfrghaffwyr gwahod yn uffan cefnodd y cyfgorest, y cyhoedd y cyfrit o'r cyflymau? Llywodraeth ymddi chi wedi'i ei hun o'r cwestio? Yn tîm wnaeth eich bydd ymdweud ymddi'r cyfwil yn y clwr a'i'r cyfwil yn y tîm rhyw ymddraeth ei ddweud ac yn y cyfrifigias bwysig ymddi'r cyfrifigias. A έfob oedd ymddi i'r rai ysgol ei gyllid, ac yn fan y cyfrifigias bwysig, ac mae'r cyfrydd fyddyn nhw yn mynd i'r aelod y gallwn. The first point on neutrality, I mean I think we have what you really see when you think about Austrian neutrality in security and defence policy, very often Ireland comes up as an example too, so very often in the analysis that you read it's like oh we are a bit like the average but a bit different. In the end neutrality it's in our constitution and it's an ingrained part of our neutral politics. What's interesting I think when you look at the development over time that's really something where I think it helps sometimes to take a bit of a bigger time picture was that of course at the beginning neutrality was very comprehensively defined. It was really we are neutral, we are not engaging economically, politically, military in taking sides in any conflict. So that was really the old cold war, during the cold war the concept of we stay out of it. And that of course changed over time especially in the 80s and 90s where you could see that what they call in Austria we define it as a differentiated neutrality. So the idea was well you know the world is changing, it's that we in the end define neutrality in our constitution in terms of three things. And in the end they are clearly defined also in our constitutional lawmaking. We can't use military force without a UN mandate outside of our borders. So if you want to participate in a UN mission, if you want to participate in a mission it needs to be under UN mandate. We can't join military alliances and I will later on talk a bit about how this changed with CFSB and we can't station foreign forces on our territory. This is still in the end what it says in our constitution and where everyone agrees on. What of course changed there, we join sanction policy, we of course join politically different alliances. But this is very clearly defined okay, a differentiated definition of neutrality about more of a military aspect. What's interesting then is that you really saw when Austria joined the European Union in 1995 so we actually were celebrating 20 years of membership that many observers said we saw a double speak. We saw actually a development of this whole neutrality discourse in two direction. There is the public discourse, we are neutral and you know it's the cornerstone of our foreign policy. It's what keeps us safe, it keeps us sound and it keeps us prosper and we are not going to change it. So that's in the end the public discourse. And one thing that you also seen in the last 10, 15 years very strongly evolving is it's a very emotional discourse. Even if you have politicians who just want to point out let's have a very more profound discussion. What does it mean to be neutral as a new member? They are shut down very quickly by the public reaction in terms of that's not something we are wanting to discuss. We like our neutrality. And that of course also harms the discourse. But what was interesting is it also created a second layer of neutrality definition. And that's what's really like when our government negotiated with the European Union. It's still very much present that in the end we said oh yeah we are neutral but we also want to actively participate in CFSP. And in the end it's also said in our constitution that well being part of the common foreign security policy and participating in security arrangements is not in contrast to our neutrality provisions. And that's in the end still what is happening at the moment. The question of course is where is the red line? And what I found quite interesting I was also looking a bit more at the recent documents especially in terms of military planning. In terms of okay what's the future of armed forces of defence policy in Austria. And when you open the document and I want to quote here because I found it really interesting. One of the first paragraph is following. The EU is the central framework of Austrian security policy. It is about military service actively engaging and looking forward in cooperation with our European partners. That was one part. But then it goes also on Austrian defence policy rest upon an engaged neutrality politics and the notion of European solidarity. And what I found so interesting when you look at these different documents you have this public discourse. We are neutral and we can't do anything. But very often actually from the expert side we have this push of saying no we have actually to talk and we have to be more active in participating in cooperating. That was the first thing on neutrality and because I wanted to mention is because I think we still struggle a bit with this tension. So on the one hand we have public opinion being very strongly against any touching and discussing of neutrality. At the same time we have politicians but also many military experts who are saying well we should be much more active. And we should be much more honest in what we mean with defence cooperation. But we should also be much more active in shaping the civilian dimension of European crisis management and crisis operations. And that's also something where many observers are very critical because very often Austria says oh but we mostly participate in the civilian dimension of crisis management. But what you then see happening in reality is that they are just labelled as civilian personnel. But actually it's military staff who is engaging in this operation. So you also see there that very often it's a not very honest depiction of what is actually happening on the ground. This whole discussion of neutrality then links together with a second dimension that we see happening in Austria more generally informed policy. And that many people also criticise and that is really a provincialisation and a nationalisation of the discourse. So what really saw happening in the last 10-15 years is that many discussions that were about what is the role of Austria in the European cooperation in defence and foreign affairs in the international world was then pulled back into a national discourse of what does Austria want and what is the Austrian interest. And sometimes very local discussions as well. So for example when we had a discussion about the Austrian security strategy in 2013 the task for security and defence policy was widened widely. Our military, our defence forces, our security forces should take care of a broad range of security issues. Also bringing in a lot of internal security aspects of course. And I think that's also modern and what's happening in many other countries. But what many people criticised was it was like a catalogue of two pages and there was no prioritisation. There was no talking of how do we now in the end set the focus and link this in the next step with operationalising with also creating the means. So what we could see that there's a lot of discussion of what Austrian defence and security policy should be with. But it reads more like a wish list and it's really very quickly just in the end fades away because we don't see that there's a follow up especially politically in terms of what should be the priorities. So very often what we see it's no prioritisation, no resource planning. But we also see a lack of military capacity or just staff capacity, insecurity and defence. So one thing that perhaps I should also mention also we still have a conscription army. And in 2013 we had a referendum if we want to get rid of our conscription army and perhaps have a professional army. Which also would link in the end to the expertise that we got of ok we want to do more crisis management, we want to do more civil cooperation. So we should have more professional focus, we should have a professional army that can actually participate in that. At the same time what we saw is I checked the numbers that what we had experienced in 2000 we still had 3000 forces. It actually had dropped to 2000 in 15 years. So we actually had much less military staff, most of them conscription. But at the same time we had very old structures and very old command structures. So then we always were laughing that actually there are more military people in the command structure than actually on the ground. So in 2013 there was this push by our government. Ok let's talk about this. The problem was and that comes back to what I meant it's a nationalisation and bringing back the discourse very often away from the security discourse. Because the way they had asked in the referendum was ok we give you two possibilities and I will just look that I don't misquote them. But one was ok you can have a conscription army or a civil service that is in the end for everyone male above 18. Or you can have a professional army and a voluntary service here where we don't know if these young people are actually going to support our social sector. So that was the in the end we had a referendum with two questions. And the way they had linked it was that the debate in the next six months was all about should we have a voluntary social year or should this be mandatory for those that don't want to go in the conscription army. You could really see it was very frustrating for those who tried to talk about ok how can we professionalise modernise the defence and security services. Because it was all about ok what do Austrian people want in terms of social service. As with many references we had a turn out I think of 53%. It was mostly elderly people who participated in the referendum. And I think the rate was 63% said oh no we keep the conscription army. And what I found very fascinating you could really see for those who had really worked hard and trying to see ok how can we mix or how can we match. Or attempt to get a professional crisis oriented civil cooperation in our security and defence. At this point really took a blow because they were saying you know we worked so hard in trying to explain to people that this is what we need. And actually we still don't have the means that we would need to go ahead. And that brings me to my last point that I want to make because I think when we talk about security and defence policy of course it's also linked a bit to the wider political will. And the political strategy that we are seeing. And there we see that in Austria we had a very active form policy despite neutrality. It was always that ok we are neutral but it doesn't mean that we built a wall and pretend there is an outside wall. But we want to be the centre of mediation. We had a lot of different organisations with the seat in Vienna. And this was really something that was also appreciated and saying ok we want to be active in our peace politics. But unfortunately that did not really last in the last 15 years. So what we really see is again a refocus on national issues. And one of the things that of course you could see it also depended very much on internal politics. So for example we had a foreign minister who was also the vice chancellor at this time. And he actually declared publicly that I'm not interested in form policy. My task is to explain form policy to Austrians. And he actually very often did not go to foreign affairs council. We had the same in the Ministry of Defence where we had defence ministers who had interesting ideas. But they didn't have the expertise and the background that perhaps it would need to push forward their portfolio. And at the moment what we see we have no new defence ministers in January. He has very interesting ideas but he comes from the police forces. And he puts a very strong focus on internal security. And again it fits widely with the wider security and defence focus in terms of modern security, cyber security. But you also have very traditional things like all we should support border control. We want to especially at the moment of the refugee crisis the military should be in charge of managing the border. The military and the security forces should be in charge of emergency management. So especially when we have avalanches in the winter. But also in the summer we get more and more flooding now. That's really where you see you can also win plus points in the public debate. And that very much shapes at the moment of how Austrian security defence policy is discussed. As again I just wanted to mention these different things because I think they really show a bit this tension that we are observing in Austrian defence and security policy. And that also reflect a bit of what's happening in how Austria represents itself I think in Brussels and in this cooperation network. So on the one hand there are sometimes attempts to say we want to more actively talk with partners especially the non-aligned and the other neutral partners. And saying what can we actively do in the civil crisis and emergency response areas. But that are very individualistic attempts. And what you see that especially on the political level the will and the strategic thinking is just not there. Because mostly they couldn't sell it at home because of our neutrality. One thing that will be interesting in 2018 Austria is going to hold the presidency. And I was just looking through the plans for the new coalition of what they want to focus on. Of course also with the Trier Presidencies. And one thing of course that's very strong and that will remain is proactive engagement in the Western Balkans. So that's also in terms of international crisis management. That's also really something where the Austrians still put a strong focus and also want to remain in Kosovo, in Bosnia in terms of peacekeeping. A strong discourse on the link between internal and external security especially cyber security digitalisation. And the last, the third item that they said they want to focus on in security terms is cooperation on the external board on border management. And in the end I think we are all very familiar with the whole discussion on asylum policy. I'm really glad to be here and really glad to speak about the contemporary challenges for both Finnish and European defence. For the special reason that for a long time, and now I'm thinking looking at this from a perspective of a researcher. For a long time the main challenge in the field was how to find something new to say. But now that is no longer the main challenge a lot is happening and there is no lack of things that we should discuss. Last year if we take it very shortly last year in Finland was perhaps a wake up call of some kind. Otherwise the other Finnish defence thinking is rather slow moving. We now also find that it is positive to be slow. But anyway things are now happening at a different pace. Many things are moving fast, decisions are being taken, plans are being prepared. And a big question that I would like to put to us from a sort of European perspective is whether everyone is on the move and whether everyone is moving more or less to the same direction. Or whether it is rather that some are moving, others not and those who move are moving into different directions. Is it that the need to do something that we now also clearly feel? Is it that it leads to action nationally rather than on any other European level? Would it be that the European plans look a bit repetitive and slow and lagging behind when compared to the sort of urgency of the situation some feel? Perhaps the gap between national and European is getting wider and gets back to this towards the end of the presentation. But let me first describe to you the main elements of Finnish security and defence thinking. And starting with the big picture of relations with NATO and thinking about the EU. As you know the basis of Finnish defence has been and is national. It has often been characterized as an independent or perhaps credible national defence. But what has changed in recent years is that emphasis is more and more on the growing importance of international cooperation for defence. This is new but it doesn't say that international would somehow replace national. You certainly also know that Finns very much like to debate NATO membership. Finns relations with NATO are really quite close. They may be closer than those of many member states one might say. Anyway the current format these relations take is the NATO enhanced opportunity program with many enhanced opportunities. Such as pre-approval as a partner to crisis management operations. Participation in the initial phases of NATO's operational training and exercise planning and cyber defence cooperation. It's more than being a partner. It's being a special partner that can take part in the preparatory stages already. Moreover both Sweden and Finland have seen their role in crisis. Particularly when NATO has started to look more at the Baltic Sea. And there a new format has been found that is called the 28 plus two. Which would be NATO members Sweden and Finland. That would be a format that has been used for discussing Baltic Sea regional security issues. New status not really but a nice addendum to this partnership. Of course limited in space and in time. Anyway NATO membership remains an option as we say in Finland. And the most recent debates last year were mainly about the theoretical question of whether Finland and Sweden should join together. If they were to join or what would happen if one of them joined and the other didn't. We had an independent experts group that wrote a report on NATO membership last year. And the general conclusion was that NATO membership was found to be interesting. Yes but very difficult in foreign policy terms. It would mean too big a change in our foreign affairs. And that is relations with Russia. So interestingly NATO membership was not a question about security and defence. But it was a question about foreign policy. It was also a bit surprising to see that the change in the security conditions. The security environment didn't have much. Of course they had importance. But usually we have always been saying that the only thing that can change the NATO membership discussion in Finland for real. Is an important change in the security situation in the sort of neighbourhood. Now there is one but it doesn't change the NATO discussion. So that was a surprise as well. But of course there is awareness of the worsened security situation. And this awareness is very visible also in the government report on Finnish foreign security policy. That came out last summer. It contains an intriguing sentence that I really would like you to continue. It would be lovely to hear what you think it says. It starts with the primary aim of Finland's foreign and security policy is to avoid becoming a party to a military conflict. I don't think you were expecting that. It's the awareness of the fact that there might be a conflict that we didn't have before. So much for the NATO discussion and general security situation. On EU defence the government was in the report and is positive but not too detailed. Similarly our president, Sauli Nenister in his New Year's speech just said the European Union is needed much more than in decades. But it is now weaker and more fragmented than ever. And he said the Union's security and defence cooperation has taken a step forward. This is good he said and an avenue that must be kept open. So positive but not too clear. Overall Finland has always been supportive of EU security and defence policy and of all the security strategies and of the idea of having a security strategy. So also the global strategy of last year. A bit about the expectations that Finland had perhaps regarding that strategy. Finland was aiming at seeing a strengthened internal coherence and solidarity in the EU. Also more ambition perhaps in the goals on deepening security and defence policy. More conflict prevention early warning. Finland wanted to make the Arctic one of the priorities. And of course Russia what the strategy says about Russia was very important. Finland wanted to see the importance of dialogue there. But also the limits to cooperation if Russia does not respect international law. And I think Finland broadly got what it wanted. There is in the strategy a paragraph on the Arctic. And the strategy is rather clear on Russia as well. Russia is set to challenge the European security order at its core. And the strategy says that managing the relationship with Russia is a key strategic challenge. Yet it also says Russia and the EU are interdependent. And there are perhaps overlapping interests. And if there are overlapping interests then it would be nice to have discussion and cooperation. So the strategy says something about selective engagement in certain areas. Now the question of course is to what extent this strategy is consequential about its implementation. It somehow looks like the implementation plan was more an inventory of measures and possibilities that we know from before. The EU battle groups, the PESCO, the research and industrial cooperation, cooperation with NATO. All this is no doubt fine. But it doesn't seem to prompt any particular enthusiasm or action or policy. They are just there. So not much is happening in that direction it looks like, seen from the Finnish perspective. But more is happening when it comes to cooperation with Sweden. Their cooperation has been really deepening in the past years in exercises, information exchange, surveillance. And our government's reports on this is very, very generous. Saying that this defence cooperation can apply to all situations. It may even include defence of territorial integrity. And joint use of civilian and military resources. Almost anything. But still there is no plan to have any defence alliance. I think it is too important for both countries to keep their options open. And their decision making unrestricted by any commitment. So a lot of cooperation there that is new. Also action happening nationally. I think more will be spent in defence in the future. There is a special government report on defence policy that will come out now in February I guess. And it is expected to lead to discussions about increasing military spending. I don't expect very much opposition. National defence is usually a sort of positively regarded issue in Finland. But there are other changes. There is certainly more. The goal is more clearly higher readiness. You know we have this large defence force. Perhaps the largest in Europe based on conscription and well trained reservists. It would be a bit slow for the quickly moving world of today. So now high readiness is the goal. And also the possibilities to call the reservists to training with a shorter notice is something that has been discussed and even decided. But what is interesting on a sort of more general level is that the separation between times of peace and crisis is now less clear than before. And also the line between crisis and non-crisis. Our chief of defence just told in an interview that if there was an attack against Finland now it would start suddenly it would be full of surprises. It would be difficult to grasp and one where it becomes difficult to organize a response. So it doesn't sound like the traditional one when we send the soldiers to the forest skiing in a snow white camouflage. But it is somewhat more surprising. One needs to prepare for the unexpected and of course hybrid capacities are put at the centre. Now Finland is establishing a centre on hybrid threats with a number of countries including the US. Many European countries also the EU and NATO in some form. It would be a centre like an international organisation that focuses on research and training. And it would aim to strengthen the other parties' resistance of resilience and prepare for hybrid threats by training and research these kinds of activities. So in all it looks like when action is needed and nowadays solutions are first looked at a national level. And international cooperation is now said to be more important and essential. But the interesting thing is that it isn't the multilateral cooperation that we would first think about. Bilateral cooperation is now overriding both the EU and NATO. And I'm not only speaking about Sweden. But Finland now has bilateral defence-related agreements also with the UK, with the US and with other neighbouring countries. And now it is discussing participation in the joint expeditionary force led by the UK where northern European NATO countries participate. And all this looks very attractive to Finland as it seems to be capacity enhancing in many ways. But I would like to end here perhaps on a sort of more general note with a question of whether this bilateralism is a more general tendency that we see today. And what it is in that case that makes bilateralism more attractive than multilateral solutions? It seems it is, but why? Is it simply more reliable perhaps? It is perhaps easier to calculate to you know what you get out of it. It's easier to control more efficient than the multilateral frameworks. And then the question of course is what will happen with the EU. The problem might be that the EU does not have much to offer in terms of concrete contribution to national defence or to solving the new very concrete problems. Well perhaps it has, but it doesn't have the capacity to articulate the ways in which it could be helpful. And this in turn impacts on how much a country like Finland actually invests in influencing or in leading or in shaping the EU policies and how much it prefers being active elsewhere.