 Thank you for your very, very kind introduction. I would very much like to have it in writing for further purposes. May I first of all really say how pleased I am to be here. Something that I have not told even the Ambassador here is that I do have an Irish connection. My son-in-law has an Irish father. So that's an additional reason and whenever I go and meet them, they live outside London. I hear a lecture about what's going on in this country. I'm really happy to be here this time in order to share with you some views on the recent Finnish domestic politics. It was customary to say for a very long time that politics in Finland is a great bore because nothing happens. Every government is more or less behaving in the way as if they were civil servants rather than politicians. But there is no political life at all. That was a very common complaint, not so today. I would also like to pay tribute to those who chose the title for my speech. A little bit of sarcastic humor in it and I can very well live with that. Well, our offence through Europeans. If previous record is of any importance, we should really say that we are through Europeans. We have been so for a very long time and from the beginning of 1995 as we joined it, we had an aim to be as much as possible in the core of the Union. History is my university background and that is perhaps the reason why I tend to approach today, things of today through the lens of history because you won't understand what is going on today unless you knew what happened yesterday. Both of our countries are in a way in a periphery, in a geographic sense, not in any other sense. But in a purely geographic sense we are in a periphery seen, say, from Berlin or from Rome or those kinds of places and that, of course, to some degree at least brings us closer in our approaches. We have been aware for a very long time outside the main roads of European integration during the Cold War and the decision to join the European Union was therefore a very momentous decision. During the Cold War we had built bridges into Western Europe in various ways and the single most important direction from the war years onwards was our very close cooperation with the Scandinavian countries as a region. The participation was very easy because our cultures are very similar, our political systems are almost identical, the fact that there are three monarchs in the area doesn't really mean that they would be very much monarchical in their political life. So our political cultures are close and that makes our cooperation easy. Scandinavian countries had a shengen of their own 30 years before the union did, a passport union which made travel the same thing as domestic travel and we have had a common labour market since 1954 which again is much earlier than anybody dreamt of in the rest of Europe. All social services are extended to the citizens of the five countries since 1956. So from that angle again, this region is a very particular region in the degree of its integration. The European Free Trade Association was founded in 1960 and Finland joined it one year later. Among the original members were Britain, Sweden, Denmark and Norway plus Austria, Portugal and Switzerland. In other words, the European neutrals of the day except Ireland were members of EFTA and the difference between EFTA and EEC was mainly in the fact that EFTA was strictly and only a free trade area whereas the EEC had from the very beginning also political goals. So because its origins were different from the Cold and Steel Union onwards. EFTA was in a way an association of those who were not prepared to enter into political cooperation and that made it appealing to the European neutrals. Finland having in those days the Soviet Union as our main trading partner had also a country which from time to time felt the cold Siberian winds blowing our way. We were in no position even to contemplate the idea of joining EEC in those days. The matter of fact that although the European Union is not at least yet a military alliance nevertheless membership in it meant for us a political association with a group of states with similar values and similar goals and therefore it meant some sort of a political guarantee rather than a military guarantee to our independence. There were several arguments which were of an economic nature to join the European Union but there were others against it and from the political viewpoint really the fact that we were now in company, the other European democracies was a decisive importance. The Finnish public opinion at the time when we were preparing ourselves for the negotiation was pretty much divided, almost even really divided, for those against. And if you ask what were the arguments for those who were against one could simply say that they were not very different from many other countries in Europe which contemplated membership at one time. Similar discussions took place in many instances. In a study which was made before our membership comparing Norwegian and Swedish debates on the issue showed that their worries were pretty much similar to ours. The Danish case of course was rather different because Denmark made their decision much earlier than we did ours. But similar arguments were raised there too, about independence, about national culture, about the system of government and so on. Many things felt that we are somewhat superior in certain areas and our standards are more demanding and those of the Union. But after membership we noticed that we had been exaggerating. That was not really the case. We were pretty much in line and in some instances we had to improve our own performance in order to meet the requirements. So this self-confidence, self-congratulatory confidence was perhaps somewhat overstated. So many of the arguments against were more about feelings rather than facts. But feelings and politics are just as important as facts. Agriculture was of course like in so many other countries a very major problem in those days. Not that it would constitute a large part of the economy. Only about 1% of our GDP comes from agriculture although it employs about 3% of the labour force. But agriculture has in Finland like in many European countries a very powerful lobby. They are the best organised lobby and they have much at stake. Finland being a large country, in the land area the same as Britain, has a population of 5.3 million but three quarters of them live in less than one quarter of the country in the south. And the rest of the country pretty much has lived on agriculture. This is no longer the case but the mentality is that of a farming society even today in many places. Although they do not really win their bread through farming they still have emotionally a very close and strong attachment to the value of a farmer community. And farmers of course were very much afraid of joining the European Union because they did know that the system of various supports that we had on a national level would be abolished and we would have to settle for a European system. And farmers widely thought that this would be less favourable to farmers than the national system had been. Now we have somewhat of a mix and most farmers nowadays believe that membership in the European Union is in their own advantage. They do understand that having common goals with farmers of other countries in Europe may be in their best interest. But as I said, emotionally things are still difficult for them in the process of integration. We joined then in 1995 and we had before that a referendum where 54% voted in favour and that was a clear case. Sweden came a few weeks later with a somewhat slight margin. But although the referendum was only an advisory one it was in fact politically binding because the parliament would not go against it and nor did it want to go against it because the political class was much more favourable towards membership than the majority of the voters. Now why am I telling you all this in such great detail? Well, what was true 16 years ago largely still is true. The Finnish farmers and their children and people around them still feel the same way that although it is in their economic interest in the Union it works against their emotional way of seeing the world. Among those who were opposed to the membership one argument that was raised is that as soon as we are members we have an influx of immigrants in very large numbers and the trade union movement published a report according to which the day we joined the European Union we will have some 300,000 immigrants the first year. Now what really happened is speaking about hundreds not hundreds of thousands the first year now the numbers are somewhat bigger. Estonians today constitute the largest foreign born element in Finland and the Russians are almost of the same size but for Estonians it is very easy to come to Finland because culturally we are close enough and even the languages are not all that different. The fears that people were coming great numbers from tropical countries have proven to be quite naive. It's true that last week we had in Helsinki 30 degrees but so did we in winter minus 30 degrees. So this is a good barrier against unwanted immigration and if we add to that the fact that our immigration policies and immigration bureaucracy is not exactly inviting all that explains it why the numbers are among the smallest in Europe for the time being. In the early days of our membership we had a government led by the chairman of the Social Democratic Party Mr. Pavoliporen and he was prime minister for two consecutive terms or eight years. As a prime minister and party leader he was and still is but no longer a party leader no prime minister but is a deeply believing European and I use the word believing advisedly. He really does think that our proper place is in the heart of the European Union and that it is in our very best interest to do everything we can to stay there. Now we had elections this year in mid April. Before the elections in the public opinion polls it became rather evident already pretty early about half a year before that a party which used to have six members in the parliament of 200 was likely to gain good many more. As soon as politicians became more or less convinced that this is going to be the case they started to analyze the public opinion shall we say prevailing wins and they came to the conclusion that one of the reasons why this new party is likely to gain very many more seats is it's rather shall we say reluctant policy towards the European Union. A policy where all evil comes from Brussels where the fact that we have the euro was a great mistake. Sweden does not have the euro and their economy fairs even better than ours so that was proof for them that euro was not a blessing it was a curse. And since they did have and do have a very skillful leader, Mr. Timo Soini who happens also to have an Irish connection he was able to gain support from various groups, very different groups but groups which put all together did form his party. The party is not easy to define for instance on an axis left right. On some issues they are right on some others they are left. And when Mr. Soini replied to the question are you a rightist populist or a left wing populist? I am populist for everybody. And that was an honest answer because he does identify himself as a populist and in the party program the word populist does appear so they are not at all afraid of being identified through that group. They of course explain what populist means in their terms not very different from the American term of populist as it was used about a century ago. Well among the ranks there are three PhDs of the 39 and there are two Lutheran ministers. There are a number of small time businessmen, three policemen, one entertainer. So really it's not easy to say what group of your population they represent. The common thing for them is that as politicians they are rather unexperienced. The 39 less than 10 have previous parliamentary experience of any kind. The others have experience on a local level in municipal councils and the like. During last winter something very unusual happened on the political scene in Finland. We have been in the comparisons that Transparent International makes about corruption. We have been the least corrupted or among the three least corrupted in the world for a very long time. And now about half a year ago or somewhat earlier it became obvious that the group of businessmen had formed some sort of a fund for funding politicians of their own picking from the various parties and they funded their election campaigns. Then it became obvious that in their ranks there were some businessmen, shall we say questionable reputation. And those businessmen also did have projects where political influence could come in handy. And this was blown up in the news media as a very big thing. People are unused to the idea of quid pro quo in funding elections. And therefore this really meant a great deal. It so happened that the prime minister's party, the center party was the chief beneficiary of these funds. And the prime minister himself had also benefited or rather his campaign or his person had benefited from this. And on the top of that the prime minister probably say led a personal life which was too often in the tabloids. And all this put together meant that his prestige and his position became intolerable and half a year before elections he had to resign and left also his party. And his successor, Madame Kivini, an experienced reputable good politician was prime minister only for half a year and of course in half a year nobody can change the course. So the nation went to the polls. In an atmosphere of an emerging new party, political corruption and so on. That of course compared to most European nations was nothing big, nothing big at all. But in our case it was. And of course of the election then which went smoothly and without anything out of the ordinary. We when watching TV, when the counting was finished by before midnight on the election day, learned that 49 mandates went to the so-called true fence of the 200, everybody including themselves were surprised. Nobody had even thought of it being possible. Those who thought that they would make in a serious way spoke at 25 or something like that and that was 39. And then it became obvious for the center party which had been in the government to the leading party that they were the great losers. They had lost more than any other party in that and they had lost mainly to the so-called true fence. Incidentally, true fin is not a very good translation of the Finnish name. A more proverb translation would be basic fin because that's what they claim to be. They are, as they themselves think, the original fins. Now negotiations after the election for forming a coalition government started and it was obvious that the center party, being the big loser, would not come in and that the winner of the true fence would be member of the coalition and negotiations started on that basis. But it was soon obvious that their program was incompatible with that of others, especially on European issues. And the big thing all the time was Portugal. Not Greece, it was Portugal because we had to make a decision on our participation in the Portuguese bailout just before the elections and therefore everything was concentrated on Portugal. But earlier on it was already clear that in the Greek case there has been some cooking of the books of state finance and the fact that Greece was in trouble because of its own misconduct that made the true fence message, these are all corrupt. We must not support them. Kind of a thing went very well with the population. So this was some kind of a protest movement. A protest movement in the country where the GDP grows handsomely, more than 4% per year, where employment situation is improving steadily, where the public debt is well below the 60% limit, where the budget deficit is well below the 3%. In other words, if you take these criteria, people should have been happy. The contrary was true, very unhappy, very broadly, partly because of the reasons I gave you a moment ago, but also partly because of the fact that after the Lehman Brothers crisis, we did have a crisis of our own and our GDP sunk by 8%, which of course had serious repercussions for our economy and the employment situation. But things are improving now, but that measures still didn't influence people's voting behavior. After all this, we may come back to the title of this speech, our things through Europeans. Well, in the sense we are even more so than before because now we too have an anti-European party like the rest of the countries in Europe. So in that sense, yes. In all likelihood, a new government will be installed next week and the true things will not be in that coalition. So in that sense, that issue as a coalition partner is solved. But the issue that they still have 20% of the parliamentary seats will of course mean that they have indirect influence in the political life of the country and much will depend on how they behave. The party is not racist. Mr. Soini, the leader has disciplined members of the party who have made racist statements and he very clearly, there's clear of that, but of course there are within its ranks people who are not easily guided on matters of this kind. The Conservative Party will be the leading party in the new coalition and the Conservative Party has a long and strong record as a pro-European party. The Social Democratic Party will be the junior member of the coalition and they too have a very strong European record. It is only in Finland where it is possible also to have the conservatives and the former communists or the League of the Left in the same coalition that's the way it looks like. So my conclusion on the basis of all this is that we have had a political storm, but it's not a hurricane. This will have an impact upon our politics in the future, but it's not going to change the course in any dramatic way. But I would like to say in the end about the true things is to paraphrase Mark Twain when he was asked how he felt about Richard Wagner's music. It ain't as bad as it sounds. And the same of course is true also of the true things. They ain't that bad. Thank you.