Olli Rehn Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
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Let's talk now a little about the future. You indicated that you worked for the commissioner, whose portfolio included telecommunications. We've talked about the leading role that Nokia plays in your country, an enormously important company in a small country that's trying to position itself for the global economy. What are some of the major policy challenges that you see for Finland in the coming years?
Nokia is an interesting case, as we are now in the United States of America. Nokia is owned, 80 percent, by U.S. pension funds. So I guess we should rephrase the old saying that "what is good for Nokia is good for the United States."
I see. That's very good.
We're in the same boat, in a way. For Nokia and for the Finnish economy, there is indeed, as we discussed earlier, a sense of that we can revive the spirit of entrepreneurship and we can have more of a dynamic labor market. Nokia is a very socially responsible company, and I'm glad that they have retained their major operations in Finland. Roughly half of their employees are in Finland, still. But we shouldn't take that [for granted], that they will forever stay in Finland as we are facing the global markets. At the same time, I think the Finnish society has a very strong educational and technological infrastructure, which is very useful for Nokia and other, let's say, small and medium-sized companies that Europe and Finland desperately need in order to succeed in the coming economic transformation.
How important will the competition with Microsoft be for Nokia and companies like Nokia?
It seems it is important. Nokia is facing U.S. competition in two different spaces. One is the software, cyberspace: who will define the next generation, software rules for wireless, mobile communications. That's where we have some sort of a competition between Nokia and Microsoft, too. The other space is China, where China is currently considering between three different standards for third generation mobile communications. The Americans and the Europeans are lobbying very hard, and the Chinese themselves are very hard considering which standard will be the best choice for their country. That's important, because China is, for the moment, practically the only significantly growing market and will be so in the next few years. So there are major challenges for a company like Nokia, and they are, evidently, of a global nature.
In the previous era, in the Cold War, it was said that Finland went through the Soviets to deal with the world, or always at least had to take that into account. But now the European Union is important because it is through Europe that you will negotiate Finnish and Nokia interests in the world economy.
That is correct. Finland is, in a sense, in an interesting axis between the old and new Europe, in a sense that we accept Donald Rumsfeld's expression of "Old Europe," meaning mainly the core of the European Union, i.e., France and Germany. Finland has tried to be at the core of Europe for security and economic reasons, and tried to be close to the major powers. At the same time, although it is a Nordic country, in terms of East-West trades, Finland is on the same axis as countries like Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary. Or it's actually a bit east of [those countries]. Meaning that for Finland, security considerations still play a role, which was for the Eastern and Central European countries an essential factor when they supported the U.S. position in the current Iraqi crises.
In my view, Finland should work strongly for a continued Euro-Atlantic cooperation for the sake of Europe, and especially for the sake of Finland, because, both in terms of economic globalization and security questions, Finland is one of those countries that appreciates the U.S. presence in Europe, more than, perhaps, the French and the Germans do.
If we move now to talk a little about foreign policy, you're suggesting that that a small country like Finland could play a role that transcends both the Old Europe and the New Europe? Is that fair, or are you really solidly in the New Europe camp?
Let's not exaggerate the role of small states in this kind of a conflict.
We like to do that at Berkeley.
Well, that's nice. That's nice, because even some of the latter states don't count in this particular conflict. In many ways, the key issue is for how long the U.S. will prepare ground for a broad international coalition. And, on the other hand, how far France and Germany are willing to go to risk the Euro-Atlantic linkage. It seems that Germany is, in any case, not participating in the possible action in the case of Iraq, but France will play a role in that context, certainly in the U.N. Security Council.
Finland could play a certain role, and it will have to explore possibilities to play a role at one point or another to repair the damage that has been already happening for the Euro-Atlantic security cooperation.
So both the United States and Europe are very important for your country.
That is correct. That is correct. We had a discussion on NATO membership in Finland in the recent years, and the next government will explore and study the pros and cons of NATO membership in the course of next year and, perhaps, come to some conclusions from that. A friend of mine picked quite a nice point on this matter a week or two ago. He asked me if Finland were to join NATO, which NATO should it join? Unfortunately, for the moment, there is more than a streak of truth in that quip.
I would guess that either way, it could provide a lot of technological advice on how to counter cyber-terrorism, actually.
That is correct.
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