An explanation for the eastern neighbor’s surprise announcement in the exam: “Russia always responds in some way”

New Finland and Kauppalehti’s European election exam started with the most burning news of the day, when the candidates got to answer a question about Russia’s announcement to move its sea borders against Finland and Lithuania.

Prime minister Petteri Orpo (kok) told during his press conference in parliament that it is probably a routine inspection, and no “political maneuvers” are known.

A member of the coalition and the EPP parliamentary group Henna Virkkunen emphasized calmness and the fact that Russia’s announcement should be investigated. Virkkunen pointed out that the information on the matter has been very fragmented.

“Now we have to find out what this is all about and we shouldn’t get confused and get involved, because often the purpose of this kind of hybrid influence is precisely to cause confusion and confusion,” said Virkkunen.

With Russia’s announcement, it is linked to the government’s eastern border decisions

The surprise caused by Russia’s maritime border announcement was “in a class of its own”, said the member of the Basic Finns and ECR group Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner.

“Usually, such operations are carried out in cooperation if there is a need to review some borders, but this is now a unilateral initiative. It raises concerns that international agreements are not being followed,” said Ruohonen-Lerner.

“Let’s act unilaterally, in a way by attacking. The purpose is certainly to cause instability and worry in Finland,” he continued.

Russia’s announcement about moving the sea borders may be related to the government’s eastern border measures, believes the vice-chairman of the center, MP Petri Honkonen. On Tuesday, the government presented the so-called conversion law to the parliament, which is intended to combat instrumentalized immigration from Russia.

“It’s hard not to connect this situation with the government’s proposal to improve the security of the eastern border yesterday. Usually, Russia always responds in some way. The reason is to be prepared for the fact that there will continue to be enough nastiness,” said Honkonen.

Two possible scenarios

The greens’ meppi Ville Niinistö said that he was satisfied with the reaction of the Finnish foreign minister, the president and the prime minister when the news of Russia’s announcement was received. According to Niinistö, there are two options for what is happening now.

“The second is that Russia is just experimenting to test how to panic in Finland and how we react. It can also be a question of technical activity dependent on sea level fluctuations. Countries have the right to make revisions,” Niinistö said.

If it is a question of unilaterally changing the borders, Russia has no right to it and, according to Niinistö, it can be challenged in international maritime law.

Bad cards in Russia against Europe

Chairman of RKP, Minister of Education, aspiring to the EU Parliament Anna-Maja Henriksson shared Niinistö’s idea about the experiment conducted by Russia. According to him, it is pointless for the EU to react to the situation at this stage.

“This may very well be a trial ball that has been sent out and then maybe it will be noticed that this was not wise after all,” Henriksson said.

Member of the European Parliament of the Social Democrats Eero Heinäluoma pointed out that Russia already has bad cards in the struggle against the EU. According to Heinäluoma, the economies of the EU and the United States are more than 20 times larger than Russia’s.

“When the match is also an economic match, there are no good cards left for Russia. It can also be seen in the fact that their partners are such as Iran and North Korea. It doesn’t really promise success,” Heinäluoma said.