Abstract
Narratives interlink temporally scattered events into one storyline. In doing so, they mediate collective memory. Specific narratives deal with concrete events, whereas schematic narrative templates follow a more general form without detailed information. Narrative templates apply to multiple events, but a single national narrative can also be extended to a national idea when it explains the ‘story of the entire life course of a nation’. 1
In this study, Finland's neutrality after the Second World War is identified as a national narrative. Finland's policy of neutrality became not only a strategic choice because it secured a significant degree of sovereignty but it was also a part of Finnish national identity. 2 When explaining this kind of narrative emplotment, Wertsch uses the term ‘national narrative project’, which ‘is directed toward an aspiration or ideal that guides a national community's understanding of itself’. National narrative projects are commonly in play when politicians try to mobilize a population. They exist in political rhetoric when politicians speak to their national audiences. 3
Historians agree that Finland's aspiration to join the EU gave impetus to redefining its neutrality. 4 However, there is no consensus on how and when the transition in neutrality policy formulations began. Research on the governmental reports to the parliament indicates that changes in Finland's neutrality formulations took place already between the years 1988 and 1990, 5 but Aunesluoma and Rainio-Niemi find this evidence too ‘murky’ to draw a conclusion. 6 Furthermore, to a large extent, the starting point of the previous studies is that Finland's policy change was orchestrated in the domestic sphere. This is the first article that locates the reformulation of Finland's neutrality narrative in the international environment and, unlike Wertsch, does not trace the origins of national narrative projects to domestic rhetoric. Making use of the Archives of the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Political Archive of the German Federal Foreign Office, the study examines the interconnectedness of foreign policy and collective memory across cultures and analyses how Finland's Cold War neutrality narrative was reformulated when Finnish diplomats engaged in dialogue with their German colleagues. The novelty of the research lies in its archives-centric approach. While this is a traditional approach in international history, archival research is rare in memory studies.
This research is a case study from the diplomacy of and between Finland and Germany. It builds on the findings of Karin Bachleitner, who brings the construction of collective memory into the hands of diplomats and to the international stage, arguing that the formation of collective memory starts when policymakers have to position their country anew in interaction with foreign societies. 7 Bachleitner describes how ‘in the immediate aftermath of an often-traumatic event to be remembered, publics remain predominantly silent, leaving policymakers with little to gain from making politics with memory, at least at home. In the international sphere, incentive structures, on the other hand, are different’. The role of the diplomats is manifested when they engage with a political strategy in the aftermath of a historic event. Politicians and foreign policy officials are not only representatives of particular narratives. More importantly, they are important actors in creating collective memory. 8 Following Bachleitner's argumentation, this study starts from the premise that diverse actors in the making of a state's foreign policy are both users and creators of historical knowledge. In the study, diplomats include foreign policy officials and politicians who are actors in the making of a state's foreign policy. The key question is how diplomats as ‘agents of history’ intervene in one's own or other society's collective memory in the form of narratives and whether this collective memory making starts in the international sphere.
Certainly, if diplomats want to form a new narrative advancing their policy goals, they have to be conscious of the historicity of the past. Rüsen sees historical culture as the totality of discourses that are disseminated, negotiated and debated. It is a narration of the past to make sense of the experience of time. Whereas remembering is an act and memory is the result of the act, historical culture is a process and it can vary across time and space. 9 To historicize historical consciousness, Maria Grever and Robbert-Jan Adriaansen speak of historically effected consciousness, which includes the ‘meaning of an awareness of the relativity and limitations of one's own historicity’. 10 In other words, diplomats have to understand the historicity of different interpretative frameworks and they cannot manipulate collective memory and narratives at their pleasing.
The article is arranged in four sections. Firstly, it introduces Finland's policy of neutrality and the international political context of the early 1990s. Thereafter, the empirical sections of the article examine the visit of the Foreign Minister of Finland, Paavo Väyrynen to Germany in January 1992, the visit of the Chancellor of Germany, Helmut Kohl to Finland in March 1992 and discussions related to the notions ‘peacekeeping’ and ‘peace enforcement’. Discussions between German and Finnish foreign policy officials and politicians are studied in detail. More specific questions are: How did Finnish and German diplomats interact with each other? How was neutrality narrated in their discussions? How and why did Finland's neutrality narrative change?
The change in Finland's neutrality narrative provides an illuminating case when studying the role of collective memory in the policy-making process in the international sphere. Bachleitner underlines that it is precisely in the immediate aftermath of a specific event that political actors can create collective memory in the form of a political strategy. Furthermore, strategizing begins within the international environment, where foreign policy representatives face ‘strong incentives to begin shaping a collective memory for their country’. 11 Bachleitner refers specifically to wars as historical events, but in this study, the end of the bipolar world is seen as a crucial happening since it opened the way to interpret Finnish neutrality anew.
How to organize relations with Russia or the Soviet Union has been the key characteristic of Finland's history. For centuries, Finland belonged to Sweden. In 1809, the period of Swedish rule came to an end and Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy belonging to Russia. The overthrow of the Russian Czar by Bolsheviks in November 1917 led to the independence declarations of Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia and the Ukraine. The leader of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the first head of the Soviet state, Vladimir Lenin recognized Finland's independence because he believed that Finland would later turn to a socialist republic. In the beginning of 1918, socialists began a revolt but the Finnish Civil War ended in a triumph for the Senate's troops and Finland opted for a republican form of government. 12
During the interwar period, widespread Russophobia characterized Finnish society and, according to the President of Finland, Juho Kusti Paasikivi, led to two wars with the Soviet Union (Winter War 1939–40 and Continuation War 1941–4). The Baltic states lost their independence and the socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe formed the Moscow-dominated Warsaw Pact. From the Scandinavian countries, Denmark and Norway joined NATO, while Sweden remained outside military alliances based on its long history of neutrality. This all underlined Finland's vulnerable position as a frontier state, which shared a 1343 kilometres’ long border with the Soviet Union. Acknowledging geopolitical realities, Paasikivi found it imperative to develop a good working relationship with the Soviet leadership. 13
The end of the Cold War brought a radical policy change, which was manifested in several ways. For example, the perception that Finland had ‘won’ the war (defensive victory) because the country maintained its independence became popular in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
14
The excerpt from the speech held by the President of Finland, Tarja Halonen in 2005 reflects the patriotic reinterpretation of the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union (1941–4): In the summer of 1944, we again managed to stop the Red Army's attempts to conquer Finland. Our country was not occupied at any stage, during or after the war. We lost part of our territory, but we achieved a defensive victory. We held on to our independence as well as our democratic political system and our economic system. For us the world war meant a separate war against the Soviet Union and we did not incur any debt of gratitude to others.
15
During the Cold War years, to a large extent, the tone was milder. Having defeated Finland, one of Hitler's allies, the Soviet Union wanted to tie the country to the Soviet defence system through the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (FCMA-Treaty). To meet Soviet security demands, Paasikivi found signing the bilateral pact inevitable even though he disliked its obligations. To make the FCMA-Treaty more appealing, Paasikivi included in its preamble Finland's aim to remain ‘outside antagonist great power interests’. 17 This sentence formed the basis for Finland's Cold War neutrality. 18
Finland's policy of neutrality was a foreign policy strategy, which offered room for manoeuvre as Finland was squeezed between the Western and Eastern Blocs of the Cold War. The Soviets interpreted the FCMA-Treaty as a military alliance and they had always strong doubts about Finnish neutrality.
19
Finland's close collaboration with the Soviet Union was also questioned in the West, resulting in accusations of Finlandization. Originally, the Foreign Minister of Austria, Karl Gruber, used the term in 1953 to illustrate an unwanted model of neutrality.
20
Later, the concept was applied in various contexts but in its most ‘neutral’ sense, it ‘aims to reassure a more powerful state, usually a neighbour, either through bilateral politics or other means such as reinforcing regional stability through a neutralist foreign policy posture’.
21
Fraternal relations between Finland and the Soviet Union were never approved by all Finns, but Finlandization ‘was an insidious political culture that permeated society as a whole’.
22
The president of Finland, Urho Kekkonen even defended Finlandization in 1977 by stating that: we work from the premise that Finlandization means political compromise with the Soviet Union and from that viewpoint our entire post-war foreign policy has been Finlandized policy. We are satisfied with the results.
23
When aspiring for an EC membership, Finnish politicians and officials considered the policy of neutrality incompatible with the union's enhanced foreign and security policy. Thus, neutrality became an ideological burden and by the mid-1990s, mentions of neutrality were discarded from official foreign policy documents and speeches. Based on the idea that the policy of neutrality had helped walking the Cold War tightrope but Finland had never really identified itself as a neutral country, this change of mind was presented as a pragmatic foreign policy line. 25
This perspective ignores the fact that neutrality was also a part of Finland's national identity during the Cold War years. Indeed, Aunesluoma and Rainio-Niemi have described how neutrality had an effect on the way people felt about themselves: Neutrality – although never completely undisputed – grew close, even dear, to the Finnish people and elites and was therefore constitutive of Finland's self-perception during the Cold War. In addition, officials spared no effort in their attempts to make neutrality popular, even beloved, among the people. These efforts were relatively successful. By 1990s, the idea of Finland's neutrality had become deeply internalized among both decision-makers and the broader public.
26
In this article, the analysis focuses on Finnish and German diplomats and how they contributed to the change in Finland's neutrality narrative. The reason for this selection is twofold. Firstly, it is fair to say that Germans were the godfathers of Finland's EU membership. Without their help, Finns might not have joined the organization in 1995. 28 Secondly, Finnish–German relations underwent a profound change after the German reunification when the question of divided Germany was excluded from the agenda of the superpowers. Contrary to the Cold War years when the Paris Peace Treaty and the FCMA-Treaty's reference to Germany as a potential aggressor placed restrictions on German–Finnish relations, reunited Germany had no direct bearing on Finland's international position or on its policy of neutrality after the end of the bloc division. 29
In Finland, the upheavals in East-Central Europe did not contest Finland's policy of neutrality. On the contrary, in September 1990, Finns responded to the German reunification by reinterpreting the military articles of the Paris Peace Treaty and nullifying the reference to Germany as an aggressor in the FCMA Treaty. These moves paralleled the restoration of German sovereignty and in practice strengthened Finland's neutrality position. 30
In October 1990, the Swedish government announced its intention to put in an application to the EC, but Finland's political leadership was not prepared to follow suit as long as the negotiations over the European Economic Space (EES) had not been concluded. 31 Continuity in Finnish neutrality policy endured as well. When outlining Finland's options in April 1991, Finnish diplomat, René Nyberg underlined that the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) of the political union was still in the making. If the Western European Union (WEU) would not be subordinated to the union, neutrality might not be an obstacle to join the EU. According to him, a joint security identity as such did not pose a problem for Finland's neutrality policy if the EU's security identity did not include military assistance. 32
Nyberg monitored Sweden's integration policy as well. On 1 July 1991, Sweden submitted its application for accession to the EC. As Nyberg had expected, Sweden excluded neutrality policy from its EC application. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister of Sweden, Ingvar Carlsson spoke of retaining Sweden's neutrality in his speech at the parliament of Sweden. 33
Sweden's bold move provoked public discussion about Finland's future plans, but it was the attempted coup to seize control of the Soviet Union in August 1991 that sparked a debate on how to adjust Finland's policy of neutrality to European integration. The coup was the last desperate attempt of the communist hard-liners to turn the tide of the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's political and economic liberalization in the Soviet Union's empire in Eastern Europe. The coup collapsed and Gorbachev resumed power, but only for a few months and he was forced to grant independence to the Baltic states. 34
After the coup, the president of Finland, Mauno Koivisto was ready to re-evaluate Finnish–Soviet relations. He made up his mind about replacing the FCMA Treaty with a new treaty and turned in favour of Finland's EC membership. 35 Koivisto found that Finland's EC membership preconditioned discarding the FCMA-Treaty. Yet, how Finland's neutrality would fit into its integration policy was open to question. Koivisto did not share his thoughts on the matter but he instructed the government to examine how the EC membership would affect Finland's economy, decision-making process and foreign policy. The report was ready by Christmas. 36
Until the end of 1991, Finland's goal was to preserve its status as a neutral country. When considering its EC application, the Finnish government believed that the common defence policy of the political union was compatible with Finland's neutrality. 37 Similarly, Nyberg did not consider qualified majority voting problematic. According to him, Finland could refrain from voting if it did not want to follow the political union's policy towards the Soviet Union. 38 In the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, what led to the new evaluations of the context of Finland's neutrality policy was the meeting of the European Council in Maastricht in December 1991. Basically, the Maastricht treaty tied its signatories to the common security policy that could lead to a common defence in the long run. 39
Nevertheless, the governing parties had different views on Finland's neutrality position. When defining Finland's foreign policy line in January 1992, the National Coalition Party and the Swedish People's Party wanted to abandon neutrality. They believed that joining the EC would change Finland's geopolitical position and guide the country away from the Soviet orbit. Staying neutral would not have served this purpose. By contrast, Väyrynen from the Centre Party of Finland considered that if Finland applied for an EC membership, it should hold on to neutrality at least in the form of ‘the core of neutrality’. The core of neutrality meant staying military non-aligned. Connected to this was the standpoint that appropriate national defence capability was to lie in Finland's own hands. By adopting the concept ‘the core of neutrality’ Väyrynen tried to win approval for Finland's neutrality line. The problem was that a reference to neutrality also referred to a wish to remain neutral in international conflicts, which would have made questionable Finland's solidarity towards other EC members. As a result, there was no real consensus whether to connect Finland's foreign policy to the core of neutrality or not. A decision to submit an EC application had not been reached either. 40
In this study, the first example that locates the reformulation of Finland's neutrality narrative in the international sphere is the talks between Väyrynen and the Foreign Minister of Germany, Hans-Dietrich Genscher in January 1992. When Väyrynen met Genscher, he put forward his idea about the core of neutrality. Pointing to Finland's aspiration to remain outside military alliances and maintain credible national defence, Väyrynen explained how he believed that Finland could stay neutral even in the new situation. He admitted that Europe had changed and he understood how neutrality did not have the same meaning it used to have during the Cold War years. Yet, Väyrynen still anchored neutrality to the Cold War period by legitimizing it with the theory of Nordic balance. According to him, military non-aligned Finland and Sweden contributed to the stability of Northern Europe. It was important that new barriers were not created and the status quo could be preserved in bilateral Finnish–Russian relations. 41
In contrast to Väyrynen, Genscher associated neutrality with isolationism. During Europe's division into two geopolitical blocs, Finland's position had laid somewhere between the East and the West. To a certain extent, neutrality had granted special status. Now the situation was different. Former Warsaw Pact countries embraced NATO's outreach policy and Russia had joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC). Genscher warned that neutral Finland was facing the prospect of being left alone when countries around it were intensifying contacts with the alliance. 42
From Genscher's point of view, neutrality as such did not pose a problem for an EC membership. After all, also neutral Ireland belonged to the EC. However, new members had to accept the union's enhanced foreign and security policy. They had to be willing to implement decisions related to the CFSP and, if need be, impose sanctions as well. To be able to take part in the development towards a political union, Genscher advised Väyrynen to assume a more flexible stance on neutrality. Genscher pointed to Austria as an example of a country that wished to add a neutrality clause in its EC application but who was ready to participate fully in the CFSP. 43
In other words, Genscher implied that if Finland would keep on clinging to its rigid interpretation of neutrality, it would be at risk of being isolated. He saw neutral Finland isolating itself from all the European countries, who were developing the continent together. Russia was one of these cooperation partners. Finland's political leadership had not yet reached a consensus on Finland's neutrality position or on its EC application, but Väyrynen had to face Genscher's concerns about Finland's Cold War neutrality. It was evident that if Finland wanted to advance its EC application, it had to adjust its policy of neutrality. It can be argued that by referring to isolationism, Genscher framed the mindset, placing the beginnings of the new narrative in the international environment.
To a large extent, the Finnish politicians in favour of joining the EU followed later Genscher's reasoning. These ‘westernizers’ argued that If Finland refuses EU membership it will be left outside Europe and become an isolated second-class state, the Albania of Northern Europe. Its western boundary should not be allowed to become the eastern boundary of Europe.
44
Drawing lessons from the war, it was the infantry general Adolf Ehrnrooth, who most convincingly expressed that Finland should never again be alone as it had been when it fought against the Soviet Union. Ehrnrooth supported Finland's EU membership. He saw that Finland was too small to shape its future if it was alone and isolated. To play a constructive role, the country needed to join a bigger community. 47 Representing renewed patriotism, Ehrnrooth had become an important character, ‘a symbol of the veteran's generation’. Tepora has explained how the veterans included people from all walks of life, but in the media the ‘veterans’ became synonymous with conservative neo-patriotism. 48 Thus, Ehrnrooth linked the positive legacy of the war, including the sense of togetherness, with Finland's European identity, suggesting that the transformation of the Finnish society to a Europe-bound nation was not a sign of ahistoricity. He himself presented continuity during Finland's identity struggle when it was searching for new ways to thrive as a country.
Thus, when talking about the dangers of isolationism, Genscher connected Finland's EC/EU debate to Finnish experiences of the Second World War. He provoked the feeling of uncertainty, which in Finland stemmed from the profound changes experienced after the end of the Cold War bipolarity. The feelings of insecurities manifested themselves in many different ways such as the fear of immigration. Indeed, Tuomas Tepora speaks of the early 1990s in Finland as the neo-patriotic era, when he describes how ‘patriotic sentiments created unexpected combinations and results when they came into contact with other new and emotionally heavy currents within society, such as the question of joining the European Union or the consequences of the collapse of the bipolar world’. 49
The second example that locates the reformulation of Finland's neutrality narrative in the international sphere is Kohl's visit to Finland in March 1992. The Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs outlined the speaking notes for the talks between Kohl and the Prime Minister of Finland, Esko Aho as follows: Finland can accept the present rules of the Community (acquis communautaire), the present forms of political cooperation (acquis politique) and shares also the longer-term goals of the Community (finalite politique) as set out in the Rome and Maastricht treaties and in the Single European Act. In some specific areas the special characteristics of Finland should be taken into account in the course of negotiations.
50
More importantly, Finland's neutrality policy was relativized. Finns wanted that their neutrality would be seen ‘in a historical and geopolitical perspective’. While European security architecture remained in a state of flux, from Finland's point of view it was best to emphasize the core of neutrality, which was ‘characterized as remaining outside military alliances and maintaining independent defence’. In the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, independent defence was considered to be in harmony with the development of the EC's defence dimension. 52 This way Finland's neutrality was presented as a pragmatic choice that was dependent on the ongoing European change. This interpretation sidelined the fact that neutrality had belonged to Finland's state ideology during the Cold War.
It can be argued that Finnish diplomats were active ‘agents of history’ when they intervened in their own society's collective memory and started replacing Finland's neutrality policy with an emphasis on remaining military non-aligned. Clearly, the changes of the neutrality concept were made to pave the way for Finland's EC membership. In view of the fundamental changes in Europe, Finnish diplomats had to understand that security and neutrality had assumed new dimensions.
Germany's role in Finland's EC application process was pivotal. The Kohl government was the strongest supporter of Finland's EC membership whereas Mediterranean countries and France had concerns about the enlargement of the community. 53 Germany's backing was also important when Finland's political leadership was forming an opinion on whether to apply for EC membership or not. For example, Väyrynen has described how he doubted favouring the EC application, but changed his mind in March 1992 after Genscher had reassured that ‘Finland's position was well understood’. 54 Ultimately, Väyrynen left the government and opposed joining the EU. According to him, Finland's ‘application was not tantamount to a commitment to join’ and he had only wanted to clarify the terms of the membership. 55
Of course, Bonn's support preconditioned Finland's full commitment to the CFSP. From Genscher's point of view, neutrality as such was not incompatible with the development of the political union, but Kohl demanded a redefinition of neutrality policy openly. Just two weeks before Finland submitted its membership application to the EC, Kohl communicated once again the need to redefine neutrality in Finlandia Hall where he responded to media questions as a guest of the Nordic Council. 56 Finland's neutrality remained a hot potato in the CDU Federal Committee on Foreign Policy in May 1992 when Joachim Bitterlich, the Head of the European Policy Department at the Federal Chancellor's Office, explained the steps towards joining the EC. The Chairman of the CDU Federal Committee on Foreign Policy and the Member of the European parliament, Elmar Brok countered doubts about the acceptability of Finnish neutrality by highlighting the country's progress in the field of foreign policy. The most important thing was that Finland was prepared to share the longer-term goals of the Community. 57
In fact, the Kohl government appeared to be more convinced that the Prime Minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt could transform Sweden's neutrality policy to the policy of military non-alignment. Sweden's neutrality had never been determined by its constitution or international treaties. In this respect, Bildt could abandon Sweden's traditional neutrality, which he did not see as fitting to Sweden's foreign and security policy anymore. 58 Thus, the German Federal Foreign Office assessed that Sweden was less attached to its neutrality than Austria and Finland. 59
It is important to note that neither Kohl nor Genscher made any concrete proposals on how the Finnish neutrality policy should be adjusted. This suggests that Kohl and Genscher did not try to intervene in the reformulation of Finland's neutrality strategically and they were not actively engaging with collective memory making in Finland. By contrast, to Finnish diplomats replacing neutrality policy with an emphasis on remaining military non-aligned was a strategic choice. Firstly, the policy change to military nonalignment helped to meet the EC membership criteria as explained earlier. Secondly, the military non-aligned status gave a clear signal that Finland would not become entangled in military alliances even if NATO should permit new members.
Indeed, following NATO's outreach policy that aimed at strengthening contacts between NATO and CSCE members, NATO diplomats Roland Wegener, Kent N. Brown and Peter Corterier had got in touch with the Finnish Embassy in Brussels in the summer of 1991. 60 This diplomacy served as a starting point when the Head of the Political Department at Finland's Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jaakko Blomberg approached the North Atlantic Council a year later and requested if Finland could be present in the next meeting of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC). 61 Perhaps surprisingly, Finland became the NACC's observer on its own initiative but Sweden did not follow suit. 62 However, Finland's foreign policy leadership was not looking for a full NATO membership and it did not want to spark debate about Finland's membership aspirations. 63 After all, NATO was not accepting new members at the time even though the long-term possibility of the alliance expansion was not excluded. 64 From the mid-1990s, Finland's NATO option policy entailed the idea that Finland ‘reserved an option’ to join NATO if circumstances changed. In practice, military alignment was not on the table until 2022 when the crisis in Ukraine made Finland and Sweden to reconsider their position and they applied to join NATO. 65
Officially, Finland's neutrality policy was replaced with the concept of ‘military non-alignment in peacetime’ in March 1992 when Finland applied for an EC membership. In such a manner, neutrality was narrowed down, but the language still included traces from Finland's Cold War neutrality. For example, Aunesluoma and Rainio-Niemi have noted how the stress on credible national defence referred to ‘the preservation of as much of Finland's Cold War neutrality as possible in the new situation’ as follows: In the constellation that has emerged after the Cold War, the nucleus of Finland's neutrality policy is emphasized to remain outside military alliances, so that in a possible war situation or during a military crisis our country could remain neutral. In support of this goal, Finland maintains an appropriate national defence capability, which is credible in relation to its security environment.
66
Disregarding Finland's neutrality narrative was motivated by the need to reformulate neutrality so that it would meet the requirements of the EU membership. Kohl had expressed the necessity of redefining Finland's neutrality policy before the country handed its EC application in Brussels on 18 March 1992. Following these lines, the German Federal Foreign Office communicated in 1993 that neutrality would not be compatible with an EU membership. 68 German State Secretary, Dieter Kastrup explained to his Finnish colleague Blomberg that neutrality was out of question, but remaining military non-aligned was possible as long as Finns understood that a defence dimension pertained to the EU membership. With the EU's defence dimension, Kastrup referred to the Western European Union, which was to merge to the EU in the long run. Since Bonn's EU philosophy entailed the EU and the WEU being congruent, German diplomats found it important to discuss military cooperation. 69
Traditionally, Finland had supported the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in reducing tensions between the East and the West. After the Cold War, the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs hoped the CSCE to become a key element in preventing, managing and resolving conflicts. As a ‘comprehensive conflict management system’, the CSCE was to develop its peacekeeping capabilities. 70 However, the Petersberg declaration of 1992 strengthened the WEU's operational role in crisis management since it made the military units of the WEU member states available to the WEU for ‘humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacekeeping’. 71 This put pressure on the development of Finland's crisis management.
The Defence Ministers of Finland and Germany, Elisabeth Rehn and Volker Rühe, discussed European defence policy during Rehn's official visit to Germany in April 1993. The German delegation implied that it did not necessarily expect Finland to join the WEU as a full member, but a formerly neutral country benefited from its involvement in the transnational security framework. 72 In Finland, the prospective participation in the WEU activities was closely connected to the terms ‘peacekeeping’ and ‘peace enforcement’. Rehn clarified how distinguishing between peacekeeping and peace enforcement tasks was not easy. The law of Finland allowed the use of force only in self-defence, but peace enforcement could have required the use of force for offensive purposes. 73
Complexities surrounding the use of force materialized in the former Yugoslavia. In August 1993, NATO decided to use air power in Bosnia to ‘protect and secure the humanitarian assistance’. Based on the UN Security Council resolutions, the possible NATO actions were to take place under the responsibility of the United Nations Security Council. 74 Stressing the authority of the United Nations was important to Finland's foreign policy leadership, who considered the legal basis of the air strikes ‘a delicate question’ and ‘a complicated matter’. 75
From Finland's perspective, the problem was that traditional peacekeeping operations sanctioned by the United Nations (UN) were becoming more dynamic by nature. Simply put, more complex peacekeeping tasks blurred the mandate for the use of force. During the Cold War years, the UN's peaceful settlement of international disputes and peacekeeping based on agreed principles were compatible with Finland's policy of neutrality. With the end of the Cold War, the role of the peacekeepers was changing as they were authorized to use force, making peacekeeping missions less impartial. It is important to note that even though Finland's neutrality doctrine was officially narrowed to military non-alignment in March 1992, sidelining the principle of neutrality in peacekeeping operations was not on the agenda of the Finnish foreign policy leaders. The fact that Finland's political leadership was not ready to authorize the use of force beyond self-defence and take part in more assertive missions also suggests that Finnish politicians and diplomats were still constrained by Finland's Cold War neutrality narrative.
Indeed, allowing peace enforcement was a touchy issue, showcasing how replacing Finland's neutrality narrative with the concept of military non-aligned was a complicated process. Only in 2005, the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs completed its proposal amending peacekeeping legislation, which consented the use of Finnish forces in the EU's crisis management operations. The proposal also extended the use of force beyond self-defence so that Finnish peacekeepers could participate in missions ‘under a similar mandate as the other EU countries’. Even so, President Halonen had her reservations about the lack of a UN mandate. According to her, ‘EU members should unanimously approve any operation’ and ‘as a rule, the EU should always seek a UN mandate for any mission and would only go it alone in very exceptional cases’. 76
This research has tested the interconnectedness of foreign policy and collective memory across cultures by analysing how Finland's Cold War neutrality narrative was reformulated when Finnish politicians and foreign policy officials engaged in dialogue with their German colleagues. The study expands Wertsch's concept of national narrative projects from domestic politics to international relations and argues that creating a new narrative began when Finnish diplomats had to position their country anew in international interactions as described by Bachleitner. In Finland's case, its neutrality narrative was a specific reading of the past, which was replaced with Finland's aspiration to remain outside military alliances and to maintain credible national defence. The actual change in Finland's political strategy in the form of an updated neutrality narrative can be traced back to the beginning of 1992 when the discussions between the Finnish and German diplomats made it apparent that Finland's neutrality policy had to be relativized to meet the requirements of the EU membership. In this respect, Finnish diplomats were active agents of history since they intervened in their own society's collective memory.
The article shows how Genscher associated neutrality with isolationism and connected Finland's EU debate to the Finnish experiences of the Second World War. German diplomats recommended a more flexible stance on neutrality, but they did not make any concrete proposals regarding how Finnish neutrality should be redefined. This suggests that German diplomats introduced new self-images but they were not strategically engaging with collective memory making in Finland.
Furthermore, the article demonstrates how redefining Finland's neutrality narrative was a slow and complicated process. Even though Finland's neutrality policy was officially narrowed to military non-alignment in March 1992, many traces of Finland's Cold War neutrality remained. An example of this was the peace enforcement operations, which were not authorized because they could have required the use of force for offensive purposes, making peacekeeping missions less impartial. The fact that Finland's political leadership wanted to remain impartial in crisis management operations and was not ready to consent the use of force beyond self-defence is a proof of Finnish politicians and foreign policy officials being still constrained by Finland's Cold War neutrality narrative.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
ORCID iD
