Political Scientist On "Finlandization": People Do Not Live On The Bridge
- 24.10.2025, 20:47
Why Belarus does not need neutrality.
On 22 October in the European Parliament Sergei Tikhanovski spoke about his vision of the optimal future for Belarus, mentioning "Finlandization". Director of the research program on Russia, EU Eastern Neighborhood and Eurasia at the Finnish Institute of International Relations Arkady Moshes said in a commentary "Salidarnasts" that this is a huge political mistake:
- If Tihanovskogo's office doesn't see any problem here either, it raises questions on an even bigger scale: about what these people have learned from their international contacts over the past five years.
"Finlandization was not a free choice of the Finnish people. This status was the result of the country's defeat in World War II. It was imposed on Finland by the Soviet Union and meant a serious restriction of the country's foreign policy sovereignty in exchange for the preservation of its internal political structure.
So there are almost no people in Finland who want to see this historical period as something positive - or rather, not at all.
At the same time, there has always been an understanding in the country that Finland is a democratic and European country, and therefore its place is not at all between the two blocs. As soon as the situation changed, Finland exercised its right to choose.
The negotiations on the country's accession to the EU began in 1993, and the accession itself took place on January 1, 1995. The lightning-fast character of accession shows not only that Finland was ready for integration technically and politically, but also that its future EU partners a priori perceived Helsinki as a member of the club. May I ask, where is the parallel with Belarus here? Even one?
The political scientist also notes that it is "Finlandization" that pro-Russian lobbyists in the West have been trying to impose on Ukraine for many years:
- Moscow has been giving in, saying that Ukraine's membership in NATO is unacceptable for Russia, but it is getting closer to the EU, for God's sake.
But as soon as Kiev and Brussels came close to signing a free trade agreement in 2013 (a document that does not guarantee any future EU membership for Ukraine), the Kremlin set in motion a process that led to war.
The talks about neutrality and "bridges," as Arkady Moshes notes, were appropriate in the 1990s:
- Europe's political development over the past three decades has proven that people do not live on a bridge. They live on one side of a river or the other.