Niklas Nováky and Henri Vanhanen wrote that the EU has multiple reasons to support the Helsinki Spiritual Initiative, as it will complement the ongoing process of reflection on the EU’s future within the EU and strengthen its ability to implement multilateralism strategies.
Niklas Nováky is a senior research officer at the Wilfried Martens Center. Henri Vanhanen is the foreign policy adviser of the Finnish National Coalition Party.
In the past year, the EU has been conducting two main internal reflection processes to guide its future.
These are inter-agency meetings on the future of Europe, and a strategic compass process focusing on security and defense.In addition, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced in September that she will hold a meeting European Defense Summit In 2022, to help the EU increase its defense policy.
Although Brussels has been focusing on these internal processes, a European leader proposed an additional global process, but so far the EU has paid little attention.
Earlier this year, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö put forward his initiative on the 50th anniversary of the final Helsinki Act in 1975 to revive the “spirit of Helsinki”, a groundbreaking document , Eased the tension between the West and the Eastern bloc, and contributed to the end of the cold war 15 years later.
President Niinistö is concerned about the deterioration of relations between major powers, the decline of Europe’s influence on the world stage, the increasing hostile speech used by world leaders to communicate with each other, and the weakening of countries’ commitment to the guiding principles of the Helsinki Final Act.
These include Among others Respect sovereignty, do not threaten or use force, resolve disputes peacefully, and respect human rights and fundamental freedoms. These principles are as valid today as they were in 1975.
The core of Niinistö’s proposal is to focus on the upcoming 50day Anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act and the “Spirit of Helsinki”. The key idea is to have a global dialogue, involving China and other countries that are not members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is the guardian of the document.
Niinisto hopes to promote dialogue, mutual understanding and trust between different countries, not just like-minded countries. The goal is to host the Helsinki Summit again in 2025.
Niinistö originally made his proposal in the Finnish daily newspaper Helsin Kinsanomat Newspaper In March, July, published an article on the matter in the United States Foreign policy Magazine.
He has held bilateral discussions with world leaders including German Chancellor Merkel, French President Macron, Russian President Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and US Vice President Harris. Niinistö also mentioned this topic in his speech. United Nations General Assembly In September.
According to Niinistö, the overall response has been positive.
In some ways, the idea of reviving the spirit of Helsinki can be seen as a response to US President Joe Biden’s plan to hold a meeting. Democracy Summit, Which will bring together like-minded democracies.
This is because Niinistö’s proposal emphasizes the importance of contacting people who do not necessarily share their values and principles. From the perspective of global peace and stability, the latter is at least as important as the former.
Therefore, reviving the spirit of Helsinki and organizing a democratic summit can be a complementary process to strengthen the global commitment to shared values and principles.
The EU’s silence on the spirit of Helsinki is unexpected. In particular, the principles of multilateralism, dialogue and conflict prevention have been written into the EU treaties, and the promotion of these principles is a key objective of EU foreign policy.
Revising the Helsinki spirit will also strengthen the EU’s ability to achieve its new goals Multilateralism strategy, Published in February. According to the document, “a well-functioning multilateral system is itself a strategic interest of the European Union.”
The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) that contributed to the final Helsinki document is also the first successful case of European Common Foreign Policy.
As the predecessor of the European Union’s common diplomacy and security, the Organization for Political Cooperation in Europe has very effectively coordinated the positions of the nine member states of the European Community during the CSCE process.
As a result, they can influence the outcome of the summit to a greater extent, and none of them can do it alone. The EU should seek to repeat this success story by helping to revive the spirit of Helsinki.
However, the Helsinki spirit still faces challenges. For example, Poland is experiencing a mixed attack by Belarus, while Russia is gathering troops on the Ukrainian border.
Earlier this year, China-EU relations deteriorated after Beijing imposed retaliatory sanctions on several members of the European Parliament, European diplomats and experts. Therefore, some people will argue that now is not the right time for the EU to seek ways to increase dialogue with its opponents.
But it is precisely because of this that it is worth reviving the spirit of Helsinki.As the head of EU foreign policy Joseph Borrell Before submitting the draft strategic compass to the Council of the European Union on November 15, it was pointed out that “Europe is in danger”.
Continuing conflicts along the borders of the EU can easily escalate further, whether it is intentional or it may be due to misjudgment. In order to reduce the possibility of this happening, it is necessary to keep communication channels open.
This does not mean that the EU should belittle the severity of the challenges it is experiencing. Although it is necessary and important to revive the spirit of Helsinki, as long as the EU’s security or values are threatened by hostile actors, the EU also needs to remain unwavering.
The EU can become an effective international participant only when the member states consider European efforts to make a positive contribution to security.
In general, the EU supports the spirit of Helsinki for many reasons: it was a key participant in the initial CSCE negotiations, and the Helsinki spirit process will complement the ongoing process of reflection on the future of the EU within the EU, and will strengthen the EU’s implementation of its multilateral The ability of philosophical strategy.
The EU should welcome this proposal.
