Talking to Iltalehti, former president Tarja Halonen reflects on her first encounter with Vladimir Putin in the year 2000, a few months after she took office.
In the Finnish presidential elections that year, the issue of regaining Karelia from Russia had resurfaced. At the time, some people believed that relations with Russia were good enough that Finland ought to ask for Karelia back, Halonen told IL.
But at the meeting, Halonen said she avoided raising the question of Karelia. Instead, it was Putin who brought it up, the only moment in the meeting that genuinely surprised her, according to IL.
Putin, she recalls, acknowledged that Finland's territorial losses had been a mistake on the part of Joseph Stalin, with a memo from the meeting citing Putin as saying, "the Soviet Union then, and Russia today, is large. It neither needed nor needs more territory."
Strengthening the Nordics
A group of Nordic corporate giants, including Kone and Nokia, has joined forces to create Nordic Compass.
Helsingin Sanomat explains that it's a new lobbying group aimed at improving the region's competitive edge in capital markets, deep tech, defence and energy.
The group was born out of frustration, according to HS. The members believe EU institutions move too slowly for an era defined by technological rivalry and geopolitical upheaval.
Russia's war in Ukraine, China's rise and US protectionism have lent new urgency to defending both the Nordic welfare model and the principles of free trade on which it depends, HS explains.
Rising rates
Mortgage rates may be on the way up, reports Kauppalehti.
Nordea expects the European Central Bank to start a fresh round of interest rate hikes. With the conflict in the Middle East, higher energy prices are stoking inflation across Europe.
Nordea told KL it expects that the ECB will begin tightening policy at its June meeting. The deposit rate, currently two percent, is forecast to rise in four quarter-point steps, reaching three percent by the end of October.
The 12-month Euribor currently stands at around 2.7 percent, and according to Nordea, mortgage holders should expect the 12-month Euribor to settle above three percent.
