Arja Makkonen, the Finnish ambassador to Ukraine, believes there is considerable potential to build a closer relationship and improve upon the yearly €429 million worth of bilateral trade between the two countries. The last major political event was when Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, then Ukraine’s foreign minister, went on a working visit to Finland in 2011.
After that, the two sides saw each other, albeit from a short distance – Finland’s embassy is right across from Gryshchenko’s apartment on Luteranska Street in a luxurious downtown district of Kyiv.
Called Suomi by its residents, the Nordic country sent 25 observers to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s election monitoring mission for the Oct. 26 parliamentary elections. It also provided the OSCE with €1.5 million for expenses.
“For every country it is regrettable that we have ended up in a situation like this, that we have to put sanctions against Russia as a consequence of annexing Crimea and then this situation in (the) eastern part of Ukraine, so it is a loss for everybody, including Russia,” Makkonen told the Kyiv Post on Oct. 22 over a cup of coffee.
“The European Union has a very limited choice of instruments of how to correct the situation and that is why sanctions are the only option,” she added.
Mainly because of geopolitical reasons – its policies were heavily influenced by the Soviet Union – Finland has strong ties with Russia and therefore there is much public debate on whether the imposition of sanctions is the right thing to do. Makkonen, who handed her diplomatic credentials over to the Ukrainian president in 2011, believes that the restrictive measures will be reviewed as soon as the conflict gets settled.
Like many other EU countries, Finland hasn’t escaped the impact of sanctions imposed on Russia. Earlier in October, the Labor Institute for Economic Research, a Finnish policy center, changed its positive gross domestic product forecast for the country to -0.3 percent, and growth for next year to 1 percent instead of the initial 2.2 percent foreseen in March.
There are as many as 70 Finnish companies doing business in Ukraine, the ambassador said, mostly in the financial and chemical sectors. However, she added, they haven’t quite grasped how to navigate the corrupt and bureaucratic waters here.
Cumulative Finnish investments to Ukraine have reached €100 million.
“We normally quite often do trips around Ukraine with companies, but have not been able to do so for the last six months,” said Makkonen. Given the sizable timber production industry in western Ukraine along the Carpathian Mountain range, she thinks it could benefit from exported woodcutting machinery.
The technology sector is also promising, said the ambassador whose homeland is the birthplace of tech giant Nokia, which was purchased by Microsoft earlier this year.
The biggest challenge for Finnish companies is dealing with tax collectors, she continued.
“Companies don’t want to pay for corruption – they want to pay taxes and receive fair treatment, independent judges and properly resolved court cases,” Makkonen said. “Corruption is rather a mental thing – we don’t have it in Finland not because our institutions and laws are so effective, but because people are different. We have a long history, our laws were developed under Swedish rule and I have never heard of anyone having to pay for a better place in a hospital.”
Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, reports that Finland is the world’s third least corrupt nation after Denmark and New Zealand. Moreover, the United Nations’ World Happiness Report in 2013 named Finland the seventh happiest country in the world.
Finland receives short-term laborers from Ukraine to work mostly in the agricultural sector. The flow of tourists between the two countries is quite low. The Finnish Embassy, which employs five diplomats including the ambassador, receives around 15,000 visa applications a year, refusing not more than 1.5 percent of them.
“We normally don’t have problems with Ukrainians… Although sometimes people do very stupid things – they think they should lie to us and we don’t like lies.”
Finnish employers are usually very happy with Ukrainian workers as they are “hardworking and good people,” Makkonen explains.
Visitors staying beyond 90 days, such as students and jobseekers, must apply for a residence permit, which is usually delivered to the embassy in Ukraine in two or three weeks after their approval. The permits are quite costly: €330-€540 for regular applications, and €300-€450 for those submitted online. For a shorter term stay, only a Schengen visa is required.
Makkonen doesn’t think the EU should make any exceptions for Ukraine regarding visa-free travel. “It’s totally up to you,” the diplomat says. “You have to implement all the technical requirements.”
Previously, Makkonen served as a diplomat in Belgium, Indonesia, Poland and Russia. She holds a degree in international relations and sociology from the University of Jyväskylä and has a big interest in psychology. Makkonen, who is fluent in English, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian, recommends the Finnish language courses at the Kyiv Linguistics University for those who want to communicate with Suomi residents in their native tongue.
She lives in Kyiv with her spouse as well as two dogs, one of whom, an Amercian bulldog Olli, was picked up on the streets of Kyiv. However, Lviv and Odesa are her favorite places in Ukraine.
With the embassy’s windows looking out toward the presidential office, Makkonen watched the EuroMaidan events closely. “It was pretty turbulent here in February – the Berkut (a special policy unit) was on one side, and protesters on the other. Then I said: Olli, come, we are going to the hotel. My spouse stayed with Felix (the other dog) though.”
Makkonen used to be a devoted reader of the Financial Times, but now reads mostly Ukrainian publications on her iPad. “All my time is devoted to Ukraine,” she says.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Gordiienko can be reached at [email protected].
