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Playing favorites at tsunami aid conference
| From the Rantburg Diplomacy Desk. This story amused me as the jockeying for position begins, and status is determined by whose taxpayers can offer more tribute... |
Finland found itself in a different league from the other Nordic countries at the emergency summit held in the Indonesian capital Jakarta this week. Sweden, Norway, and Denmark had all sent ministerial level representatives to the meeting, who had a right to speak at the gathering. Finland was represented by Markku Niinioja, the Finnish Ambassador to Indonesia. He followed the meeting with other observers in a separate room via closed-circuit television. | "You Finns can just go play the slots with the tour bus crowd. No VIP room with the high rollers and the pretty waitresses for you!" |
On Tuesday Finland was offered the possibility to send a representative from Helsinki, who would not have had the right to address the gathering. This means that Finland was represented indirectly by the European Union. "It raised the threshold to go to Jakarta even higher", LehtomÀki says. "It could have something to do with the fact that the other Nordic Countries are significantly bigger donors of aid - in fact, they are among the leading providers of aid in this Asian crisis." Norway's massive contribution puts the country in a category of its own. Denmark has said that it would give EUR 58 million in tsunami disaster relief, and Sweden has pledged EUR 57 million. The Finnish government has so far earmarked EUR 12 million for the effort.
Posted by: Seafarious 2005-01-08 |
