Went up to Turku to do the Environment informal. The Finns seem to be front-loading their meetings in order to avoid the long cold winter nights. Jetting into the organised, temperature-controlled Finnish summer was a deeply reassuring experience. The sense of thoroughly reflected order which Finland emits is profoundly soothing. The constant interplay of lakes, forests, neatly rectangular buildings, lakes, forests, neatly rectangular buildings is a balm to the restless soul. The honesty, industry and practical resourcefulness of the Finns have promoted them to the top of the Lisbon goals class. Polite, helpful, with a quirky sense of the absurd, Finns are delightfully straight-forward people to deal with. They come out top of the Transparency International guide as the least corrupt country in the world - developing countries take note.
What's the shadow side? There has to be one. One suspects that there must be a repressed wantonness in the Finnish psyche that could cause a man to suddenly snap and start crossing the road before the little green man has fully lit up! To insanely reject the immutable laws of gender equality and refuse point-blank to help with the washing-up! To rush out into the street and scream at the top of his voice "Lordi are shit!"
Something of this vibration is captured in a novel recommended to me by Jari (who else?). My Finnish being sadly below par, I am constrained to read it in Swedish. "Löpgravsvägen", by Kari Hotakainen, tells the tale of a man whose frustrated ambition for ordinary happiness in this life develops into an insane and all-consuming obsession, which translates into reality via his autisitically over-focussed command of the practical. A Finnish Everyman, perhaps? Through the eyes of the hero we are treated to a vision of the small-minded self-righteousness, which is the almost inevitable corollary of a society which attaches such importance to the virtues of order and practicality. Jari says he'll lend me the film they've made of it. He says it's OK, but not as good as the book. I can see why. A book is so much better at conveying inner monologue. A film has to "show" everything, even the invisible.
As for the mission, we were treated to a "Best of Finland" weekend. Ferry trip to an island in the Turku archepelago with an excellent meal in a beautiful wooden building bathed in the special clear light of a nordic summer evening, a trip to Turku castle for a Renaissance dinner and show, which included an extremely talented female singer with an exquisite rendition of a period Italian song, an extended trip round the archipelago with a beer and schnapps meal on board. Some of the summer-houses looked utterly fantastic. It seems their prices are too - if they're for sale at all! Normally they are passed on within families (largely Swedish-speaking, apparently). Carol and I came this way a couple of years ago, when we took the night boat from Turku to Stockholm. Carol was entranced by the archipelago, which seemed like something from a magical other world in the shimmering late evening light. Would a fortnight in a delectable summer house on an island make for a successful holiday? I discussed it with our Italian colleagues. No. Too boring. Too depressing. Not enough action. Maybe, but if you come to Finland, it is surely to open the pores of your soul to receive into yourself a sense of the greatness of surrounding nature. Not to "do" anything, not to notch up another "experience", but to take the time to be. Do we dare? Next year, perhaps.
I don't think I'm revealing any state secrets when I say that the "informal" meeting was a carefully staged affair. Three key-note speakers, the best being Dr. Watson (sic) from the World Bank, who, in the manner of David Bellamy, gave a very interesting talk on the relationship between Energy, Climate Change and Bio-diversity. The take-away message was the overriding need for coordination between different policy areas and the difficulties which arise from the what he called the "silo" mentalities of individual disciplines. Twenty-five member states plus the Commission then took the floor to more or less agree with him. A case of "noyer le poisson", perhaps?
How discouraged should we be by these environmental Cassandras? It may well be that the earth is better able to look after itself than we, in our self-importance, are prepared to admit. Clearly, a balance must be struck between the need for a responsible use of the earth's resources and the requirement that we live our lives free of a self-imposed puritanical guilt. The end of the world has been nigh for many thousands of years. Possibly it may stumble along for a few aeons yet.