What are the plans and priorities of the Finnish presidency, in short?
There are two major priorities – strengthening the European Union and guaranteeing that it will become a competitive player in the world market. A third priority is the improvement of the EU’s decision-making process. During the past five years, the EU has not achieved the tangible results it expected. One reason has been the lack of coherency in the foreign policy decision-making process. The EU needs to speak with one voice and send one message out to the world. Two other important issues are the intensification of dialogue about EU’s future and criminal justice. The EU is now a community of 25, soon of 27 countries, and we have no uniform view on criminal policy.

Will Bulgaria and Romania bring out the topic of justice even stronger before the EU?
I hope they do. And I hope that they become one of those EU countries that want to have real co-operation in the field. The EU needs to have Romania and Bulgaria in shape before they join the community because with 27 criminal laws in place, we need to trust each other. And crime is growing as well.

Do you think the problem of justice and crime is bigger than the fact that the EU cannot compete with the US on the global scene?
Of course they are different categories of issue, but we want to protect the EU, and justice and criminal affairs co-operation is important. Without a constitution, unfortunately, it is much more difficult to create co-operation.

Will changing the name of the constitution be on the agenda?
Changing the name is a very good idea. The problem with the constitution was that EU citizens did not understand it, which was also a result of the EU’s problem of getting the message across. The EU has been criticised for not having enough democracy, but there is no shortage of democracy in the EU, and there is also no shortage of information. EU politicians, however, tend to accuse the EU whenever there is something wrong at home. There is this scapegoat idea. We have been trying to avoid that in Finland and will vote to ratify the constitution in autumn. After the constitution was rejected by France and Holland, things have been in a state of reflection. But there has been more pause than reflection really. We will try to keep this reflection process going because a constitution is necessary in terms of creating a common foreign policy and becoming a strong global performer. Another result of the French and Dutch “No” was that the European Parliament (EP) became very important in enlargement issues, more important than earlier. The EU now needs to hear the views of European citizens through the EP before the European Council can decide on the exact date for Bulgaria and Romania.

How is the Finnish presidency going to differ from previous ones?
Well, it’s a good question because as you know we have a joint presidency programme with Austria. So we will stick to this one. Austria did a very good presidency – there were results in the budget framework; energy co-operation was intensified; transparency was enhanced. The latest good news is from yesterday (the interview occurred on June 27) – the Nabucco gas pipeline goes forward thanks to Austrian activities. Energy co-operation has always been among the most important issues for different EU presidencies. It is so again, especially now that the EU is becoming more and more dependent on Russia’s energy, and, respectively, Russia’s energy market is more dependent on Europe – it is a win-win situation.

What about the Western Balkans, particularly Kosovo and Serbia? What role will the EU play in negotiations under the Finnish presidency?
The role of the EU is very important, and that is also the will of the Kosovars and all Balkan countries. So there has to be a bigger EU involvement. Serbians and Kosovars need to find a solution between them and realise their joint interests. They have to find a solution in which there is no return to the former status. Hopefully, Serbians understand that. The Bulgarian role in the Kosovo issue is also very important because they have been very constructive. They have such good relations with countries around and they are so active in facilitating procedures. I remember that when Marti Ahtisari was here, he said that he was very satisfied with what Bulgaria was doing, and this was good to hear.

What about EU enlargement? We heard opinions that the EU is tired of integration, especially in the context of the problems with Bulgaria and Romania.
There was this proposal before the summit in Brussels on June 15 to increase the role of one Copenhagen criterion – EU funds absorption capacity – over others. But we didn’t like it. Finland wants to keep the Copenhagen criteria active. We have been supporting enlargement because results have been very good – economically and otherwise – so all countries that complete the criteria are welcome, but they have to meet the criteria first. Bulgaria and Romania need to remember, however, that human rights are also very important. When the Finnish parliament ratified Bulgaria and Romania’s accession treaties on June 19, it was an unanimous decision, and discussion on human rights went on for two-three hours. And as far as the action plan is concerned – this famous Bulgarian action plan – there isn’t a single word in it about human rights. There’s nothing about minorities, handicapped children institutes, invalids, and those are big problems, which have always been important for Finland. I have said already to some Bulgarian politicians: when you try to fulfil the 97 points in the action plan, please don’t forget the yellow areas, human rights, the political criteria, they are important in the total estimation of the EU commission.

Your evaluation of how things are going in Bulgaria in terms of the pace of fulfilling the plan?
Bulgaria has had a lot of good laws in place and its problem has always been their implementation. So I do hope that this action plan will be finally more action than plan. Time is running and the EU is getting worried about the Bulgarian situation. I have been here for 15-16 months so far, and I often hear politicians say: We don’ t know what the EU wants from us, please give us a to-do list. And this not an EU problem of communication, it is a domestic Bulgarian problem. Everything is in the accession agreement and the EU monitoring reports. I still believe that Bulgaria will be a member on January 1 2007. It has actually been one of the Finnish dreams since we welcomed prime minister Ivan Kostov and foreign minister Nadezhda Mihailova in Helsinki during the Finnish presidency in 1999 – when Bulgaria was invited to start accession talks. So we have a special interest there.

Another thing: Bulgarians haven’t understood what membership really means, how big a challenge it will be for the administration to prepare its participation in EU meetings and the use of EU funds. Now I have heard that only half of Bulgarian agricultural farms are ready to use EU funds starting January 1 2007. The Government needs to intensify the procedure and finally decide about decentralisation, which is still under way. Ten years ago, decentralisation was a big challenge for Finland as well. We needed to create a new level of regional administration in Finland, a so-called association of council municipalities, in order to create motivation on a local level.

How long did Finland start on that before entering the EU?
Long before. We had a Finnish expert here in November, talking about Finnish experience in using EU funds. We will try to invite him again because we understand how big a need for such information there is in Bulgaria.

Do you have any particular advice to give to Bulgarian politicians about funds absorption?
State Administration Minister Nikolai Vassilev is working very well. There are many training programmes under way and that is good, but the total picture is unclear for me. There is still hesitancy in terms of decentralisation and in terms of how much financial, budgetary, taxation and other powers to actually delegate to regions. They know they have to decentralise, but they don’t know how, and time is running. I fear that on the local level especially, people are not ready to use EU funds. Local motivation and responsibly need to be achieved there, so people know their rights and duties.