'Spirit of Helsinki' awakes to host Trump and Putin
Finnish capital is no stranger to hosting talks aimed at keeping Europe stable — but these new guests have thrown Continent into disarray.
Beer bottles with labels depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump and bearing the slogan "Let's Settle this like adults" by Finnish craft brewery "Rock, Paper, Scissors" in a supermarket in Helsinki | Aku Harynen/AFP via Getty Images
By Reid Standish
July 13, 2018 4:01 am CET
HELSINKI — It's time for Finland to bring its referee shirt out of storage: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are coming to town.
The Finnish capital has been forced to snap out of summer vacation mode and fall back into its former role as a mediation point for world leaders as it prepares to host the U.S. and Russian presidents on Monday. But unlike past gatherings held in the name of bringing stability to Europe, this one will host two men who have thrown the Continent into disarray.
"Finns have mixed feelings about this," said Janne Riiheläinen, a Finnish national security commentator. "We have built our image as this mediator-type country, and there is pride in being a host. But there is also fear about what Trump and Putin could agree on here."
When the meeting was announced late last month, Helsinki jumped to dust off its old infrastructure for brokering agreements. With only a few weeks to prepare, officials cancelled or postponed their typical July holidays on a voluntary basis, the city police called in reinforcements from across the country to meet their need of up to 2,000 officers on duty, and hotels filled up fast with an estimated 2,000 foreign journalists set to arrive.
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Juha Ristamäki, the political editor of Iltalehti, one of the country's most read newspapers, was supposed to head to the countryside, as about one-third of the Finnish workforce typically does. Instead he's shifting his newsroom into high gear.
"We were picked because we have experience and are one of the few places on earth you can have a safe and competent meeting on short notice" — Jan Vapaavuori, mayor of Helsinki
"Finns are following everything very closely, it's the biggest story here without a doubt," Ristamäki said. "It's not just the politics, either. They're most interested in the whole circus around the two presidents."
The round-the-clock preparations are nothing new for a city that has long served as a meeting point for Moscow and Washington to resolve their differences: It hosted George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 to discuss Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, as well as Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin in 1997 to discuss NATO enlargement and arms control.
But perhaps the city's most crowning diplomatic achievement was a 1975 summit that brought together the Soviet Union, the U.S., and 33 other countries to produce a framework to help stop the Cold War from turning hot. This good faith dialogue between adversaries was dubbed "the spirit of Helsinki," and it still influences Finland's foreign policy today.
"We were picked because we have experience and are one of the few places on earth you can have a safe and competent meeting on short notice," said Jan Vapaavuori, the mayor of Helsinki. "Whatever happens with [Trump and Putin], you can't praise or blame Helsinki for it. All we can do is be a good venue."
'Uncertainty and unease'
The stakes are different this time, and so is Finland.
Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 marked the first time a country had incorporated the territory of a European neighbor since World War II, and the Kremlin has signaled ambitions to dismantle the Western-led security order. Trump, meanwhile, has not shied away from showing his animus toward both the European Union and NATO, saying that the EU was created "to take advantage of the United States" and maintaining his demand that other NATO countries increase their defense spending.
This has led to growing anxiety over the increasing divisions within the alliance, that when combined with Trump's tendency to praise and accommodate Putin, could see the Russian president leaving Helsinki with concessions on issues ranging from the recognition of Crimea to a detracted NATO.
During the Cold War, Finland carefully balanced its relations between the two sides, allowing it to integrate into Europe while appeasing Moscow. But when the Soviet Union collapsed, the country quickly moved to join the EU, adopt the euro, and now cooperates closely with NATO and the U.S. Still, while Finland is now eager to show the world that it has shed its Cold War neutrality, Helsinki continues to maintain working contacts with Moscow.
"The atmosphere here is one of uncertainty and unease," Riiheläinen said. "We've come to depend on the United States a lot for our security and there's a chance now that maybe it could go away."
Shadow of history
While diplomacy and dialogue are bedrocks of Finnish foreign policy, Trump and Putin represent two uniquely unpopular world leaders in the minds of Finns. A recent survey found that 83 percent of Finns — and 91 percent of Finnish women — have a negative view of Trump. The same survey found that 76 percent of Finns have a negative view of Putin.
With two of the world's most divisive leaders coming to town, Finns are looking for ways to voice their displeasure. Helsingin Sanomat, Finland's leading newspaper, recently published a sidebar that compared Trump to a pig, and protesters are planning a large-scale demonstration on Sunday against the American and Russian presidents, with organizers expecting at least 15,000 people to attend (although 2,200 were listed as attending the Facebook event as of publication time).
Apart from broad topics like Syria, Ukraine, and nuclear weapons, few specifics about the meeting have been offered, and given Trump's track record of leniency toward Putin, human rights concerns are not expected to be on the agenda.
Donald Trump, left, met Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany last year | BPA via Getty Images
Alpo Rusi, who worked on the 1997 summit as former President Martti Ahtisaari's foreign policy adviser, said that based on what he's seen, the upcoming meeting will likely be a way to probe for areas of cooperation that can be discussed at a later date.
"In 1997, we knew what each country wanted ahead of time," Rusi said. "We don't have that now. No one really knows exactly what Trump wants from this."
Still, he said more dialogue between the United States and Russia at a time of increased tensions is a good thing. The main concern, according to Rusi, is what that dialogue leads to.
"Hopefully they can capture the spirit of Helsinki and not something else — like Munich," he said, referring to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's 1938 capitulation to Adolf Hitler.
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