Translation

ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC MARTTI AHTISAARI
AT A LUNCHEON IN HONOUR OF PRESIDENT MAUNO KOIVISTO’S
75^TH BIRTHDAY AT THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE ON 25.11. 1998

It has been the good fortune of the Finnish people to have had a number of heads of state whose careers have included several historical turning points and who therefore personify the growth of the nation.

Ståhlberg, Svinhufvud and Paasikivi held important positions of state already in the last century. All of them, irrespective of their differences of political opinion, were leaders in the Finnish struggle for legality and independence, and as presidents they made decisive contributions to consolidating democracy in an independent Finland.

Mannerheim led Finland to peace after he had been commander-in-chief in three wars and earlier an officer in the service of the Czar of Russia until he was fifty years of age. Paasikivi brought the old Finnish tradition of Realpolitik back into its own when he piloted Finland out of the Winter and Continuation Wars and brought stability to our country’s status in the bleak conditions of the Cold War. Your predecessor Urho Kekkonen was a statesman of our own century, who before becoming President had featured in everything of political importance since our country gained independence.

You yourself were born into modest circumstances in a newly-independent Finland, into an urban home where a 19^th-century world of values prevailed. You had to discontinue your education after the national school and you had to go to war before you had time to learn a trade. When you returned from the front, you earned a living as a carpenter and joiner. Then, however, you decided to re-embark on the road of education and evening studies brought a talented young man first the white cap of the matriculant and then the black hat of a Ph.D. Manual labour was replaced by intellectual work and after a brief academic career your accomplishments in the banking world in Helsinki and the positions of state that you held swept you to the pinnacle of Finnish society.

Anywhere in the world, such an ascent would be an unparalleled success story.

In your case, it also illuminates the rapid change that Finland has undergone in the past five decades and shows what opportunities for advancement are there for young persons, even those living in modest circumstances, provided they have the ability and determination to take advantage of them. You had both, and we can all be proud of and thankful for the final result.

The two latest volumes of your memoirs, which describe your childhood, the war and the early stretches of your political career, made a great impression on me. They are not only a very personal account, but also a shocking chronicle of the generation whose youth was ended by war and which, as soon as the fighting had ended, had to assume responsibility for rebuilding the country and defending Finnish democracy, sometimes in extremely tough conditions.

Reading the profoundly pessimistic assessments of Finland’s prospects of remaining an independent democracy that you made around the time the Continuation War ended, I can only imagine how you felt as the Soviet system collapsed and the Cold War finally ended exactly 47 years later, when you were at the helm of Finnish foreign policy.

When you became President of the Republic in 1982, you judged Finland’s international position to be stable, better than ever in history. You could hardly have imagined that before your 12-year incumbency ended, Finland would not only have totally re-negotiated the arrangements on which her relations with her eastern neighbour are based, but also acceded to membership of the European Union. Finland’s position since then is not comparable to anything earlier in her history.

Your original intention was to become a sociologist, but you also became known and acknowledged for above all your masterful grasp of economic and monetary policy, as a person who shuns all forms of waste and living in debt. In the background was the conviction that you had formed during your first years in government that a people living in debt and off the work of others is not genuinely independent nor able to build its prosperity on a sustainable foundation. In the final analysis, a strict monetary policy is a means of achieving acceptable social goals, of the kinds that you listed when you consented for the first time to be a candidate for President: economic, cultural, social growth and social equalisation, a policy of national accord.

You tell in your memoirs how your father often voiced doubts about the sense of getting married and bringing children into the world and you thank your mother for insisting on having her way in this matter. You yourself had no doubts in this regard and fortunately you gained not only a loving wife by your side, but also the support of an exceptionally independent and strong-willed partner. Tellervo shared your view of the importance of partnership between woman and man; as she wrote as the Prime Minister’s wife three decades ago: "In reply to the question of how we have the strength to live, I would say first that no one can manage alone … So far, we cannot find anything in the world to substitute for the relationship between a man and a woman. I would not say, however, that it gives one the strength to live, but rather that it makes life worth living." I wish to express the nation’s thanks also to you Tellervo.

Attaining the age of three-quarters of a century is an important milestone in a person’s life, for most of us the last major jubilee. But you, Mauno, are in such enviably good condition and so mentally alert that I suspect you will be celebrating birthdays well into the new millennium.

On behalf of the Finnish people and State as well as speaking for Eeva and myself, I have the honour to extend the warmest congratulations to you and wish you a long life. I propose that we all raise our glasses in a toast to President Mauno Koivisto and Mrs. Tellervo Koivisto.