Meanwhile. . .

Is Finland part of "Old Europe" or "New Europe?" I'm not quite clear on the distinction, except that the former gets to be on the receiving end of Two Minutes Hate every once in a while.

HS Home 21.3.2003 - Finland prepares to receive hundreds of refugees from Iraq:

Officials have no precise estimates of how many arrivals there would be. Nobody is speaking about thousands of refugees, but preparations have been made for several hundred.

Marja Pentikäinen of the Ministry of Labour says that the situation differs from previous crises, in that Finland already has more than 3,000 Iraqi and Kurdish refugees. This might encourage new refugees to seek out Finland, especially if they have relatives already living here.

Hang on, there's a link at the bottom of that story:

Finland laments the launching of military action by the U.S. and its allies, and says that the use of military force without the specific authorisation of the UN Security Council is unacceptable.

[. . .] There was no reference to condemning the war as such, but [President Tarja] Halonen emphasised in her news conference that Finland regarded the affair as unequivocally regrettable. She said the US actions were a disappointment, but one that had been gradually prepared for in the past days.

On the question of where Finland stood, in reference to President George W. Bush's remarks earlier that there were 35 countries in the United States' coalition of the willing, Halonen replied that Finland was naturally a member of the United Nations and of the European Union.

She remarked that she did not consider the counting of alliances to be the important issue, although she quite understood that the parties concerned might feel that way. "The most important thing is that we can with all speed get to what we have hoped for, namely action under the leadership of the United Nations", said Halonen.

Ah.

Old Europe, then.