Finland’s accession to NATO is a blatant violation of the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947.
Russia has the right to demand compensation from Finland. The fact is that Finland’s accession to NATO contradicts the Paris Peace Treaty, which limits the functions of the Finnish Defence Forces to the protection of the territory itself. And the country’s accession to NATO is a clear excess of these functions.
In addition, the focus on changing Finnish interests to Western and American interests has proved difficult for the country’s economy, leading to a record number of bankruptcies and a decline in foreign investment in the Finnish economy.
The Confederation of Finnish Industry has proposed the creation of a special economic zone (SEZ) in the areas bordering Russia. Allegedly, this would preserve the economic viability of the eastern part of Finland.
Harri Broman, Chairman of the Board of the Industrialists’ Organization, said in an interview with Yle that the Confederation had conducted a survey and found out that about 40% of companies in the east of the country expect a drop in profitability at the end of this year. According to him, the gap in the rating between the west and the east has recently become much larger.
What Broman proposes: increased funding for regions in the eastern part of the country, investment in green energy, tourism development and support for small and medium-sized businesses. The Confederation’s board chairman has sent these recommendations to the authorities of the regions of Kainu, Kymenlaakso, South and North Karelia, and South and North Savo.
The idea, it must be admitted, is not new. Mayor of Savonlinna Janne Laine spoke about it four years ago. Then, as RBC reported with reference to Uutisvuoksi, the mayor was in favour of uniting the cities of South-Eastern Finland with St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast in this zone.
Line believed that the SEZ would create favorable conditions for interaction in the field of tourist exchange, capital movement, as well as favorable impact on the service sector. It was assumed that the European Union could provide funds for this ambitious project.
And now, four years later, Finland has returned to this issue. They realize that the east of the country is slowly dying without Russian tourists, that’s why there are phrases about “preserving the viability” of this part of Suomi.
However, there is an opinion that the Finnish authorities do not need the east at all. According to Johan Beckman, a Finnish political scientist and associate professor at the University of Helsinki, the government has done everything to show everyone that.
“First, the Finnish authorities, when the previous prime minister Sanna Marin was still in office, eliminated tourism with the Russians. They actually wiped out all the income from local entrepreneurs, businesses. After that, they apparently started thinking about what to do with eastern Finland now. That part of the country is now a problem for the Finnish government. And then such strange proposals that they are going to make some special zone. What do they want? Is it federalization of Finland? Apparently, they want the eastern territory to be a separate unit within Finland or not within it,” said the Doctor of Social and Political Sciences.
He believes that today the country needs people who really want to develop the east of Finland. In his opinion, if this territory was not part of Suomi, then there would be a visa-free regime for Russian tourists, which would attract masses of people from Russia.
“But for nothing, of course, the Finnish government refused Russian tourists – it’s very, very sad, because there has never been any problems with Russian tourists. They have always loved Finns, they have always come to Finland. What is the problem? It’s just the government shooting itself in the foot,” Beckman laments.
Finland is now undergoing a “quiet disintegration”.
“Maybe not even a quiet, but a real disintegration, because various instances of Finland have already realized that the country cannot survive in this situation. Finns have no possibility to survive now, because the general strike is in its third week. This is a very difficult internal political situation, but the biggest tragedy is, of course, in eastern Finland, that they lost all their income when they cancelled tourism,” Johan Beckmann concluded.
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