Keynote Address to the Institute of International and European Affairs by Minister for European Affairs Joakim Strand

Keynote Address to the Institute of International and European Affairs by Minister for European Affairs Joakim Strand

Minister for European Affairs and Ownership Steering Joakim Strand gave a keynote Address to the Institute of International and European Affairs on the 17th of September 2025 in Dublin, Ireland. Check against delivery.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Excellencies, dear friends,

It is an honour to be with you at the Institute of International and European Affairs to speak about Finland's futures ecosystem - and, more importantly, about how Europe can future-proof itself in a decade that refuses to be predictable.

We are living in an era where the challenges of the 21st century - climate change, depletion of natural resources, poverty and inequality, overconsumption, trade tensions and geopolitical distress - demand action, comprehensive approaches, and visionary leadership.

We must support multilateral cooperation and a rules-based international order to create a sustainable, inclusive and low-carbon world for future generations. And we must recognise that sustainable growth is impossible without tackling climate change and biodiversity loss together.

Climate urgency and growing energy demand create a critical need for smart, scalable technological solutions. Innovation and new technologies are not just economic drivers; they are essential to sustainability and resilience.

That is the context in which I want to speak today about Europe's futures ecosystem. By this I mean the people, institutions, infrastructure and narratives that give a society the power to anticipate shocks, adapt quickly, and act together.

At its heart is strategic foresight. Not fortune-telling - just disciplined methods: horizon scanning to catch weak signals; scenario planning to test how we'd act if the improbable became inevitable; stress-testing to reveal where systems bend and break. Foresight doesn't remove uncertainty; it shortens decision time and expands our choices.

Finland's vantage point is shaped by geography and history. We are a small, open, northern nation, with a long land border to the east and a deep reliance on the Baltic Sea. Our resilience is not only toughness; it is cohesion - trust, shared facts, and the habit of organised cooperation across government, businesses and communities. That is the spirit I want to bring into today's European conversation.

Let me structure this argument in three parts:

1. Strengthening Europe's democracy and civic skills.
2. Boosting resilience to malign influence - not only by countering manipulation, but by communicating better ourselves.
3. Improving comprehensive security, especially in our northern neighbourhood.

And then I'll close with how foresight can be turned into action - with lessons from Finland's own experience.

Democratic confidence in an age of manipulation

Europe's strength begins with confidence in democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental rights. These are not add-ons; they are the source of legitimacy. Yet they are stressed daily by manipulation designed to polarise, exhaust, and sow doubt.

Authoritarian actors exploit what makes us open: free speech, plural media, debate. Their aim is not one particular lie but disbelief itself.

The first element of a futures ecosystem, then, is civic power. In Finland, media literacy is embedded across the core curricula from early childhood through adult education. But it's not just schools: libraries, youth clubs, museums, NGOs, media and businesses all play a role. The habit we teach is simple: stop, think, check.

Yet literacy alone is not enough. Without independent journalism, democracy backslides silently. That is why Europe must support plural and local media.
And democracies must apply foresight to themselves. It is cheaper to fix a policy on paper than to fix it in the streets.

From rebuttal to narrative: resilience to malign influence

Much of our response to disinformation is reactive. But resilience is also about narrative.

That means shared EU-Member State messages on defining issues: Ukraine, competitiveness, security, green and digital transitions, enlargement. It means audience-first communication in plain language. And it means credibility, the strongest antidote of all: if our policies are coherent and our delivery is visible, our story tells itself.

Finland works with EU partners, NATO, our Nordic-Baltic and like-minded countries against foreign information manipulation. We also "export resilience"- sharing tools and training with partners beyond Europe, including the Global South. Resilience is a public good: the more of it there is, the safer we all are.

And resilience is not a posture you adopt in crisis. Resilience is a culture. You build it before the storm, and you maintain it between storms.

Comprehensive security in a harder world

Security today is physical, digital, and cognitive. On Europe's northern flank, we live this daily.

Three risks stand out:

• GNSS interference - a ferry captain losing confidence in position on a winter night is not an abstraction.
• The shadow fleet - ageing, under-insured vessels that combine sanctions evasion with safety risks.
• Undersea infrastructure - if data is the bloodstream of our economy, subsea cables are the nervous system.

Europe's Cable Security Action Plan has the right design, but plans must become capacity.

Recent incidents like Estlink2 remind us: every minute saved in detection and every day saved in repair translate into economic value and strategic credibility.

Comprehensive security extends beyond the sea. It means civil protection, cyber-defence, supply chain robustness, and legal authority to act fast when reality moves faster than process. That is what citizens expect.

From foresight to action: lessons from Finland

So, what does a future-proof European agenda look like? Here Finland has some experience to share.

Thirty years ago, after a severe economic depression, Finnish leaders understood we needed to prepare for alternative futures. In 1993 the first Government Report on the Future was submitted to Parliament and a Parliamentary Committee for the Future was established to scrutinise it.

Since then, every electoral period, the Prime Minister submits a new Government Report on the Future. Parliament responds with resolutions, and the Government reports back annually on progress. This dialogue creates continuity across election cycles, builds consensus, and embeds foresight into the very machinery of governance.

The report itself has evolved. Its first part is a whole-of-government scenario exercise, looking twenty years ahead. Its second part focuses on a specific topic. All ministries analyse implications for their sectors. This is not an academic exercise - it is a practical framework for preparedness.

Independent audits have confirmed that this process has strengthened foresight capacity across government and harmonised practices. And crucially, it has created a culture of acceptance: foresight is not a partisan luxury, but a core responsibility.

But we are not perfect. The tyranny of the short term still distorts politics. Decision-makers everywhere - including in Finland - need better futures literacy, more strategic planning culture, and greater capacity to deal with discontinuities and surprises.

Effective foresight requires methods, time, resources, leadership commitment, and integration into decision-making. It requires open dialogue, external expertise, and networks. Above all, it requires freedom from political manipulation: foresight must illuminate choices, not justify agendas.

This is the challenge Europe faces: how to institutionalise foresight so that singular events are connected to broader strategic contexts, and governments can respond not only faster, but smarter.

Finland's offer-and our asks

Finland offers three things:

• A whole-of-society media literacy model.
• Regional leadership on Baltic undersea resilience.
• Coordinated strategic communications with EU, NATO, Nordics and like-minded partners-and a willingness to share our foresight processes globally.

And we ask three things in return:

• Launch and fund Europe's democracy instruments.
• Resource the cable security agenda - on both Baltic and Atlantic coasts.
• Maintain momentum on Ukraine, defence readiness, and an innovation-centred Single Market.

Three offers. Three asks.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me end with a picture of a futures ecosystem.

A Europe where classrooms teach students to stop, think, check.
Where local media tell the stories only, they can tell.
Where citizens feel spoken with, not spoken at.

A Baltic Sea and an Atlantic coast where cables are protected by design.
Where interference is detected quickly.
Where repair capacity is as expected as fire departments.

An EU where every major initiative has been stress-tested against multiple futures, so when the world zigs, Europe pivots.

That is not naïve optimism; it is practical ambition. We have the institutions, the talent, the market, the means. What we need is the habit - of foresight, of partnership, of delivery.

In Finland, we compress preparedness into three verbs: Learn. Link. Act.

We learn together, so we see further.

We link across borders and sectors, so we move together.

And above all, we act together, so we can shape the future that follows.

From the ice edge of the Baltic to the Atlantic edge of Europe, let us choose to be the shapers, not the shaped.

Thank you.