The Europeanization of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Finland

In ARENA Report 08/08, Savino Ruà analyzes how the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland has adapted to the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) since the Finnish became members of the EU in 1995.

ARENA Report 08/2008

Savino Ruà

This report analyzes how the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland has adapted to the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) since the Finnish became members of the EU in 1995. Two perspectives on the CFSP are adopted: The CFSP is conceptualized both as a structure of opportunities and as a normative regime, as a system of norms, rules, identities and ideas. The former view of the CFSP is rooted in a rationalist account of Europeanization; the second, in a constructivist approach.

The main finding is that the Common Foreign and Security Policy has indeed impacted on the Ministry. The CFSP as a structure of opportunities has benefited the Ministry. The policy has contributed to a partial reassertion of the Ministry’s role in the Finnish executive. Moreover, the CFSP has led to changes in the formal and informal organization of the Ministry. The Ministry has learned the value of supranational political cooperation. Yet, both bureaucratic adaptation and socialization, or norms internalization, appear as rather limited phenomena in the Finnish case.

ARENA Report 08/2008 (pdf)

ISBN 978-82-93137-65-8 (online) 978-82-93137-15-3 (print)

Published Apr. 25, 2016 12:59 PM - Last modified Apr. 26, 2016 9:18 AM