The World

“What’s the difference between a Finnish extrovert and a Finnish introvert? The introvert looks at his shoes when he is talking to you. The extrovert looks at your shoes.”

As politicians jokes go, that is not bad. I heard it from Alex Stubb, the Finnish foreign minister, who was speaking last night at the European Business Leaders conference here in Helsinki. Like many successful young politicians, Stubb is a crazed over-achiever. I used to know him in Brussels, when he was a member of the European Parliament,  so I asked him if we could meet up again later this weekend. He informed me proudly that this would not be possible, since he is going to Germany to take part in an “iron man Triathalon”. Lucky him.

Another way of dividing up the Finns is between the inward-looking and silent “forest Finns” and the outward-looking cosmopolitan “Nokia Finns”. Naturally, the Nokia Finns are running the show at the business conference. Finland’s recent economic success has made the country a prime example of the benefits of being a small open economy in a globalised world. But some of what I’m hearing at this conference makes me wonder, if we may be moving back into an age in which it’s better to be big.

There was a session this morning in which we heard from the European countries that seem to have done worst during the economic crisis. They are all tiddlers: Iceland, Latvia and Ireland. Perhaps it is because the size of their economies makes them peculiarly vulnerable to sudden outflows of hot money. Perhaps it is because in really tough times, their big neighbours will not necessarily look out for them. There is certainly a lot of bitterness in Iceland, about what the locals see as their abandonment by the rest of Europe.

Finland, of course, is a much bigger country and economy than either Latvia or Iceland. But on a world scale this is still a pretty tiny place with a population of just over 5m – and it is going through tough times. The economy is expected to shrink by 6% this year and unemployment could be heading to 7%.

The Finns wil have to make cuts like everybody else. But they will be very reluctant to cut defence spending, which has been growing by about 9% a year for the last decade. That, perhaps, is a commentary about what small Finland thinks about developments just across the border in its giant Russian neighbour.

Alex Stubb will tell you that Finland has hugely enhanced its security, as a small country, by joining the European Union. Stubb also wants his country to join Nato – although that is not government policy. But, just in case, the Finns have also been re-arming and recently staged their largest military exercises in decades.