* Handles Finland's foreign affairs in cooperation with the Cabinet, except for certain international agreements and decisions of peace or war, which must be submitted to the parliament

During the Cold War, Finland's foreign policy was based on official neutrality between the Western powers and the Soviet Union, while simultaneously stressing Nordic cooperation in the framework of the Nordic Council and cautious economic integration with the West as promoted by the Bretton-Woods Agreement and the free trade treaty with the European Economic Community.

Finland's foreign politics before this deal had been varied: independence from Imperial Russia with support of Imperial Germany in 1917 ; participation in the Russian Civil War ( without official declaration of war ) alongside the Triple Entente 1918 – 1920 ; a non-ratified alliance with Poland in 1922 ; association with the neutralist and democratic Scandinavian countries in the 1930s ended by the Winter War ( 1939 ); and finally in 1940, a rapprochement with Nazi Germany, the only power able to protect Finland against the expansionist Soviet Union, leading to the Continuation War in 1941.

After the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, Finland succeeded in retaining democracy and parliamentarism, despite the heavy political pressure on Finland's foreign and internal affairs by the Soviet Union.

Firstly, he did not believe that any of his successor candidates would manage Finland's Soviet foreign policy well enough.

As the leader of Finland's foreign policies he initially continued Kekkonen's line until the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He is particularly remembered as a main architect of Finland's foreign policy after the Second World War.

Charles's next seat was the castle of Vyborg, on Finland's eastern border, where he kept an independent court, taking no heed of Christopher and exercising his own foreign policy in relation to such powers in the region as the Hanseatic League, the Russian city of Novgorod and the Teutonic Knights in what are today Estonia and Latvia.

After Finland's independence and the Civil War in Finland the matter of whether Finland should be a republic or a constitutional monarchy was much debated ( see Frederick Charles of Hesse ), and the outcome was a compromise: a rather monarchy-like, strong presidency with great powers over Finland's foreign affairs, the appointment of the Council of State and the officers of the civil service.

Kaurismäki's next film Lights in the Dusk was also chosen to be Finland's nominee in the category for best foreign film.

Jäätteenmäki used the information to suggest that her rival, the Social Democrat leader Paavo Lipponen, had secretly offered Finnish support for the U. S .- led coalition, a substantial breach against the official policy of neutrality in Finland's foreign politics, and thus associated Finland with what many Finns considered an illegal war of aggression.

For instance, during the run-up to the Winter War, Eljas Erkko was at the same time the paper's publisher and Finland's foreign minister.

Another important topic for Vanhanen was Finland's foreign and security policy.

After the Winter War, Finland's foreign policy was drastically changed, by and large to correspond with that of IKL, and Annala was even included in the Cabinet where all parties of the parliament were present at December 1940.

In June 1979, he publicly rebuked Virolainen, who was then Speaker of Parliament, for " bearing a false testimony " about Finland's foreign policy, and for harming Finland's international relations.

Shortly before this harsh accusation, Virolainen had suggested in an interview by the Suomen Kuvalehti magazine that the National Coalition Party had remained in the opposition despite its major victory in the 1979 parliamentary elections because of " general reasons " or foreign policy ( Suomi 2000 ; Pekka Hyvärinen, " Finland's Man: Urho Kekkonen's Life " / Suomen mies.

Finland's White Guard, the Whites, managed to seize a few aircraft from the Russians, but were forced to rely on foreign pilots and aircraft.

When the Winter War broke out, suspicions against Finland's " hazardous foreign politics " remained strong, most importantly among leading Social Democrats in Sweden.

Communists had demanded the posts of prime minister and either ministry for foreign affairs or internal affairs and as the result were not included in the new minority cabinet led by Fagerholm ( there was no communist participation in Finland's government again until 1966 ).

According to the dominant view in Sweden's foreign ministry, Finland's foreign policy had, since her independence and 1918 civil war, been " unsteady and adventurous ".

The German foreign ministry at Wilhelmstraße, on the other hand, wanted to exploit Finland's precarious situation after the fall of Vyborg to connect military aid to political concessions.

Commonly in reference to Finland's policies vis-à-vis the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but could refer to similar international relations, such as Denmark's attitude toward Germany between 1871 and 1940, and Taiwan's relation with China since 2008.

France broke off diplomatic relations to the White government later, during the war of 1918, as a consequence of White Finland's co-operation with Germany.

The Soviet Union's major counter-offensive began on 9 June 1944, in a situation when Finland's relations with Germany were strained due to Finland's earlier attempts to secure a separate peace.

After Finland's independence in 1917, relations with Sweden unexpectedly became strained in connection with the Finnish Civil War and the Åland crisis, which further aggravated the language dispute, sharpening it into a prominent feature of domestic politics during the 1920s and 1930s.

It also has good relations and has received encouragement from various other Christian democrats, such as Andre Rouvoet of the Netherlands ' ChristianUnion, Päivi Räsänen of Finland's Christian Democrats and Senator Rónán Mullen an independent member of Ireland's Seanad Éireann amongst others.

After Finland's declaration of independence the parish became an issue in Finnish-Russian relations when its population held a vote in August 1918 to join Finland.

This contributed to the abortion of close intelligence cooperation between the two countries, and resulted among other things in a total failure for the Swedish attempts to improve the relations with the Third Reich be means of some kind of cooperation in Operation Barbarossa — executed as " support for Finland's heroic struggle against Bolshevism " — at the same time intending to ease Finland's emotional dependency on Germany.

* Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade, responsible for economic relations, coordination of EU affairs, coordination of the country's relations with adjacent states and planning and coordination of Finland's Nordic relations, Alexander Stubb.

Like president Urho Kekkonen, Karjalainen was considered to put much emphasis on Finland's relations with Soviet Union.

The most predominant influences on Finland's geography were the continental glaciers that scoured and gouged the country's surface.

Given that the bulk of family chores fell to women, and that they were five times more likely than men to head a single-parent family, the shortcomings of Finland's child day-care system affected women more than it did men.

In addition to that, the world's two largest floorball leagues, Finland's Salibandyliiga and Sweden's Svenska Superligan were formed, in 1986 and 1995 respectively.

Up until the time of Finland's independence in 1917 – 18, when the song began to be recognized as specifically applying to Finland, Pacius's tune and Runeberg's text were often also sung in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

In Finland they went by the name Ruotsinlaivat (" Sweden's Ships " or " Ships to Sweden ") whereas in Sweden the preferred terms were Det Samseglande ( roughly " the ones that sail together "), Finlandsbåten (" Finland's Ships ") or Sverigebåten ( Sweden Ships ).

In anticipation of the 1999 Leonid storm, Robert H. McNaught David Asher, and Finland's Esko Lyytinen were the first to apply this method in the West.

Finland's ongoing recession caused established political figures to lose public support, and the presidential elections were now direct, instead of being conducted through an electoral college.

President Ahtisaari supported Finland's entry into the European Union, and in a 1994 referendum, 57 percent of Finnish voters were in favour of EU membership.

Finnish historians, political scientists and journalists still debate whether President Kekkonen really wanted to dismiss Prime Minister Koivisto or whether Kekkonen wanted to speed up Koivisto's slow and ponderous decision-making or whether this government crisis was just a part of the ruthless " presidential game " that top politicians, such as Koivisto, Foreign Minister Väyrynen, Social Democratic Chairman Sorsa, acting Governor of the Bank of Finland Karjalainen, and Parliamentary Speaker Virolainen, were playing ( see, for example, Pekka Hyvärinen, " Finland's Man: Urho Kekkonen's Life " / Suomen mies.

This didn't improve Paasikivi's reputation among the Swedish Social Democrats dominating the government, who were sufficiently suspicious due to his association with Finland's Monarchist orientation in 1918, and the failed Lapua coup in 1932.

But the suspicions between Finland and Sweden were too strong: During the Winter War Sweden's support for Finland was considerable, but short of one critical feature: Sweden neither declared war on the Soviet Union nor sent regular troops to Finland's defense.

They were, after all, Finland's largest political party with over 40 % of the deputies ( see, for example, Seppo Zetterberg et al., ed., " A Small Giant of the Finnish History " / Suomen historian pikkujättiläinen, Helsinki: Werner Söderström Publications Ltd., 2003 ; Virkkunen, " The Finnish Presidents I ").

Yet, the people of Estonia could often hear the melody, as Finland's state broadcaster Yleisradio, whose radio and television broadcasts were received in Northern Estonia, played an instrumental version of the Finnish national anthem, identical to this song ( except for an additional repetition of the last verse in the Finnish version ), at closedown every night.

British forces that began to be assembled to send to Finland's aid were not dispatched before the Winter War ended, and were sent to Norway ′ s aid in the Norwegian campaign, instead.

Yle Fem was previously known as YLE FST5 ( Finlands Svenska Television, literally " Finland's Swedish Television ") but the name was changed because the watchers thought the name were only a combination of letters ( Fem is Swedish for five .).

The recently retired Timo Rautiainen & Trio Niskalaukaus were one of Finland's most popular metal acts in the early 2000s, having risen from the ashes of late 1980s-early 1990s cult band Lyijykomppania.

The recruits were transported across Finland's western border via Sweden to Germany, where the volunteers were formed into the Royal Prussian 27th Jäger Battalion.

The demands were that Finland cede the Karelian Isthmus, including the city of Viipuri, and Finland's shore of Lake Ladoga.

Finland was forced to cede nearly all of Finnish Karelia ( with Finland's industrial center, including Vyborg / Viipuri, Finland's second largest city, Käkisalmi, Sortavala, and Suojärvi and the whole of Viipuri bay with its islands ; in total, nearly 10 % of the territory ), even though large parts were still held by Finland's army.