The spirit of Helsinki? The EU must pay attention to Finland’s initiative – EURACTIV.com
The European Union has several reasons to adopt the Helsinki Spirit initiative, as it would complement the ongoing internal EU-level reflection processes on the future of the bloc and strengthen its ability to implement its multilateral strategy, writes Niklas Nováky and Henri Vanhanen.
Niklas Nováky is a senior researcher at the Wilfried Martens Center. Henri Vanhanen is the Coalition Party’s foreign policy adviser.
Over the past year, the EU has been involved in two major internal reflection processes to guide the future.
These are the multidisciplinary conference on the future of Europe and the security and defense-focused Strategic Compass process. In addition, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced in September that she would convene a European Defense Summit in 2022 to help the EU step up its defense policy efforts.
Although Brussels has focused on these internal processes, one European leader has proposed an additional global process that has so far received little attention from the EU.
Earlier this year, President Sauli Niinistö presented his initiative to revive the “spirit of Helsinki” before the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. This is an important document that eased tensions between the Western and Eastern blocs and contributed to the end of the cold season. War 15 years later.
President Niinistö is concerned about the deteriorating relations between the great powers, Europe’s diminished influence on the world stage, the increasingly hostile rhetoric of world leaders to communicate with each other and the countries’ crumbling commitment to the guiding principles of the Helsinki Final Act.
These include among other things respect for sovereignty, the refraining from threatening or using force, the peaceful settlement of disputes and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. These principles are as valid today as they were in 1975.
The core of Niinistö’s proposal is to focus on the next 50th Anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act and also “Helsinki Spirit”. The key idea would be to have a global debate and to include countries such as China, which are not members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the guardian of the document.
Niinistö hopes to increase dialogue, mutual understanding and trust between different countries, not just like-minded countries, with the goal of a new Helsinki summit in 2025.
Niinistö originally made his proposal in a Finnish daily newspaper Helsingin sanomat newspaper in March and July published an article on the subject in an American newspaper Foreign policy diary.
He has already discussed the idea bilaterally with world leaders such as German Chancellor Merkel, French President Macron, Russian President Putin, Chinese President Xin and U.S. Vice President Harris. Niinistö also raised the issue in his speech UN General Assembly in September.
According to Niinistö, the overall reception has been positive.
Somehow the idea of reviving Helsinki Spirit can be seen as a response to US President Joe Biden’s plan to Democracy Summit, which would bring together like-minded democracies.
This is because Niinistö’s presentation emphasizes the importance of dealing with those who do not necessarily share their own values and principles. From the perspective of global peace and stability, the latter is at least as important as the former.
The revitalization of the Helsinki spirit and the organization of the Democracy Summit could therefore become complementary processes that strengthen the global commitment to common values and principles.
The EU’s silence on the Helsinki Spirit has been surprising, especially as the principles of multilateralism, dialogue and conflict prevention are enshrined in the Union’s treaties and their promotion is a key objective of EU foreign policy.
The reform of Helsinki Spirit would also strengthen the Union’s ability to achieve the goals outlined in the new agreement multilateral strategy, which was released in February. According to the document, “a well-functioning multilateral system is a strategic advantage for the EU itself”.
The Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which led to the Helsinki Final Act, was also one of the first success stories of the European Common Foreign Policy.
European political cooperation, the forerunner of the EU’s common foreign and security policy, coordinates very effectively the positions of the then nine members of the European Community during the OSCE process.
As a result, they were able to shape the outcome of the summit much more than any of them alone would have been able to. The EU should strive to replicate this success story by helping to revitalize the Helsinki spirit.
However, Helsinki Spirit still faces challenges. Poland, for example, is experiencing a hybrid attack on Belarus and Russia is concentrating its forces on the Ukrainian border.
Earlier this year, EU-China relations deteriorated as a result of retaliatory sanctions imposed on several MEPs, European diplomats and experts in Beijing. Some therefore argue that this is not the time for the EU to look for ways to increase dialogue with its opponents.
But it is precisely for these reasons that the revival of Helsinki Spirit is worthwhile. As head of EU foreign policy Josep Borrell stated before the presentation of the draft strategic compass to the EU Council on 15 November, “Europe is in danger”.
Ongoing conflicts at the EU’s borders can easily escalate, either systematically or incorrectly. To reduce this probability, it is necessary to keep the communication lines open.
This does not mean that the EU should downplay the challenges it faces. While reviving the spirit of Helsinki is necessary and important, the Union must also remain strong whenever its security or values are threatened by hostile actors.
The EU can only be an effective international player if the Member States see European efforts as contributing to security.
Overall, the EU has several reasons to adopt the Helsinki Spirit: it was a key element in the initial OSCE negotiations, the Helsinki Spirit process would complement ongoing internal EU-level reflection processes on the future of the Union and strengthen the future of the EU. ability to implement its multilateral strategy.
The EU should welcome this proposal.