Brussels, 05/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - Antti Kousmanen, Director for Enlargement at the General Secretariat of the EU Council and member of the Finnish negotiating team at the time when Finland was negotiating EU membership, presented last week in Brussels his book called "Finland's Journey to the European Union" published by the European Institute of Public Administration (amply reviewed in our European Library). Mr Kuosmanen stressed that, for Finland, the request for membership was not really a "break" with its past policy, and that the changes accession would require were not "such a big problem". Answering questions on the lessons that the new candidate countries could draw from his experience, Mr Kuosmanen noted above all that these countries should not forget that they are the ones that must make an effort for change, as the EU will certainly not modify its acquis in the context of accession negotiations. He said they should also tackle the problem, at home, of "resistance to change" and the "mistaken fears" of the consequences of membership (a problem that the current EU Member States are also facing). Another lesson to be learnt, he said, is that: "when you think a deal has been done, the real fight begins".
In its EU membership negotiations, Finland had presented 134 requests on agricultural issues, noted Mr Kuosmanen. He recalled that, at the time, Finnish farm prices were around twice that of prices practised in the EU. Negotiation on regional policy, on the other hand, was finally "much easier" than predicted, no doubt because, he said, the EU had decided to be "rather generous in this area and much tougher on agriculture". Furthermore, Mr Kuosmanen spoke of a number of problems in negotiations that were "more psychological than real", like those concerning secondary residences, for example (he commented on the fears expressed by his compatriots at seeing a large number of EU nationals arrive, saying "who would want to buy houses in Finland, on our lakes, in winter?"). Another fear concerned the Finnish alcohol monopoly. One question that concerns current applicants - that of the date for accession - was not a problem for Finland, said Mr Kuosmanen. He noted that the fixing of this date (early 1995) by the European Council of Copenhagen in June 1993 had been "almost unexpected", because "we had not campaigned for it".