CERCLE DIPLOMATIQUE - issue 01/2018

LE MONDE FINLAND | INTERVIEW
H.E. Hannu Kyröläinen
“A populist party put into government responsibility will change.
That‘s our experience.“
The Ambassador of Finland to Austria about the reinvention of his country‘s economy
after the rise and fall of Nokia, the ongoing basic income experiment, the secrets of
Finlands education system and – ta, ta – the true address of Santa Claus.
Interview: Rainer Himmelfreundpointner
CD: Your Excellency, you have started your ambassadorship
to Austria in September 2016. What
impressions could you gather so far?
Hannu Kyröläinen: My first 16 months
have confirmed my positive expectations of
Austria. I had visited Vienna before quite a
number of times on business trips, the first
one was in 1987. So my positive expectations
turned out to be true and realistic.
Can you give us an overview about the current
relationship between Finland and Austria, in
historical, economic and cultural respect?
If you look at the history of the independent
Finland – we have celebrated our century
of independence just last year – and
the history of the Republic of Austria, both
republics are 100 years old. There have
been mutual contacts before, but this year
we celebrate the first 100 years of diplomatic
relations between our countries. In particular,
after the Second World War and
after 1956, these relations have become
quite close. Both of us were then neutral
countries outside the military blocs and
our contacts were quite intensive. They
could nowadays, in terms of high-level visits,
be more frequent. Since 1995, Austria
and Finland are connected, instead of neutrality,
by the EU membership and, consequently,
the members of our governments
are regularly meeting each other at EU levels.
Has chancellor Sebastian Kurz ever visited Finland
during his service as foreign minister?
No, not to my knowledge. But maybe he
has been in Finland before in private.
Are the economic ties between Finland and
Austria sufficient? Trade volume is only a litte bit
more than one billion Euro, and Finland only ranks
31st among Austria‘s partners.
There is always room to improve. When
I prepared for this ambassadorship I was
also surprised that the trade numbers are
relatively low. But this is not really the whole
picture because in many ways out two
economies and our enterprises are intertwined.
And working together in many
ways. Historically, the forest sector has
been important for both countries, with
common interests, too. Many Austrians
have invested more than half a billion Euro
in Finland and employing some 3,000 people
there. Likewise, many Finnish companies
like Kone, Metso or UPM, the Biofore
Company, just to name a few, have invested
in Austria. And these trade figures do not
reflect our exchange of services. So I would
say that our economic ties are deeper that
the statistics indicate. But as I said, there is
room to improve.
Is the language barrier a reason for this?
It may play some role but it is not a full
explanation. After all, the Finnish exports
to Germany, our number one export partner
country, are quite large. So the language
cannot be the main factor. But maybe
because the German market is so important
and big for us...
...Finnish exporting companies forget about the
smaller Austrian market?
That‘s right. So we try to explain to our
enterprises that Austria also is a very strong
market with many ties to the Eastern European
countries or the Balkans.
From the Austrian perspective, one of the reasons
might also be that apart from many clichés like
the thousands lakes and saunas in Finland, people
maybe don‘t know enough of your country? Can
you give us a picture of today‘s Finland, maybe
starting with the economy, like the rise and fall of
Nokia, the impacts of the sanctions against
Russia, one of your main trade partners, or the
influence of digitalisation, which cuts down the
need for paper, on your paper & pulp industry?
Well, I would agree to most of the points
you made, but not all of them. In hindsight
it may be right that Nokia in its high-time
and the whole eco-system around, had a
too big share of our economy. And when it
broke down and the mobile phone production
was sold to Microsoft, it had to reinvent
itself and it did succeed in doing so.
Nokia is now one of the biggest network
providers in the world and just last month
has reported more than expected profits. So
Nokia is back, but it is a different Nokia and
doing well. And do not forget that the descent
of old Nokia has also contributed to
the rise of our big startup-scene.
Which has created 200,000 new jobs so far. And
“Slush“, the major Finnish startup festival, is an
international must-attend-event today.
I really haven‘t seen any extensive study
on this, but I have the feeling that the
down-sizing of Nokia has released a big
amount of talents for the labour market in
the last ten years. Some of them have succeeded
on a very high international level,
like in the game industry – you may know
that the ”Angry Birds“ actually come from
Finland. I even would consider that as a
perfect example of Schumpeterean creative
destruction. In this process, we would like
to see our SMEs internationalise themselves
more actively – as SMEs do in Austria.
On the other hand, what about the impact of
digitalisation on the paper & pulp industry?
Talking about the paper & pulp indust-
FOTOS: XYXXYXYXY
PHOTO: RALPH MANFREDA
H.E. HANNU VEIKKO KYRÖLÄINEN
Born in Kangasniemi, Finland, the former Senior
Expert on Security Policy at the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs in Helsinki, since September 2016 serves as
Ambassador of Finland to Austria. He has also held
several additional high level positions in the Finnish
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was Ambassador to
the Czech Republic from 2007 until 2010.
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Cercle Diplomatique 1/2018
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