The Ambassador of Finland in Poland, His Excellency Hannu Hämäläinen, talks to Krzysztof Pawlik.

You've been the ambassador to Poland for a few years now. What is your opinion on the Polish preparations for EU membership?
Recently I have studied the progress report from the EU Commission. They are stating certain areas and certain aspects in the preparations where there is still something missing or some more work definitely needs to be done. There were nine major areas of concern mentioned in the report, and there is still a serious concern about the preparedness of Poland for the EU membership. But of course if you compare this to the work that has already been done, it's clear that the progress overall has been very good. As a matter of fact there is not that much left to do. We of course really hope that Poland can manage to do the rest of the work in the remaining months and that there will be nothing critical left undone, when Poland becomes a member of the European Union.

Which of the critical aspects remain undone?
Of course some things are more critical than others. For example, if there are major problems concerning the functioning of the internal market, then it is very likely to cause problems for Polish exporters. Something not ready in the field of agriculture may be a potential cause for problems with gaining subsidies for Polish farmers. It certainly depends a lot on the field where the problems appear. Some obstacles may be really hard to overcome in the time remaining, while others, even though regarded as serious, may not necessarily be so critical at all.

We've heard quite a lot about the competitiveness of Finns and Finland in general. As a matter of fact, this year Finns regained the position of world leader in terms of the level of competitiveness. Could you tell our readers the secret behind this?
It is very difficult to say exactly what the main reason is. But we think that the lessons from the last economic crisis we had in the early '90s have been learned and well taken note of. Since then we have been investing a lot in education as well as training of the work force, and the whole population too. Another crucial thing responsible for our results in competitiveness is investing in research and development. You may not know this, but Finland has one of the highest percentages of investments into R&D in the entire world. The Finnish government has also done a lot to improve the business environment with new legislation and tax cuts, for example, to keep the level of investments as high as possible. Where we have also been very successful is when we were outlining the strategy for the future and investing a great deal into IT and other new technologies. This turned out to be an excellent decision. Apart from Nokia we have also many other successful companies operating in this field.

There are quite a few Finnish companies successfully operating in the Polish market. Are there any Polish products, brands or companies active or popular in the Finnish market?
Well, of course there are many Polish products that have been doing very well in Finland. I am afraid that I'm not able to recall every Polish brand that is known to everybody.

Some of the products, for example foodstuffs, are of course sold under Finnish labels and you don't really know they are actually Polish products.

But of course there are more and more Polish products in Finland. Our imports from Poland used to be mostly coal. Now there is a lot more diversity in the Polish exports to Finland. There are products such as fruits, vegetables, juices, etc. These products have a very prominent place on the Finnish market, but as I said before, they are not branded goods in such a way as Nokia for example.

Have you made friends with Poland-professionally or personally?
My wife and I have been here for more than three years now. It is rather natural in this profession that the ambassador meets hundreds of people. So I can say that I do know very many people. Fortunately I can also say that some of them have become also close personal friends of mine. For an ambassador this is a problem, because when meeting people is an important part of your job, you don't really have time to concentrate on your friends. I must say that this is probably the worst aspect of the ambassador's life.

Nevertheless I have made friends both personally and professionally-Poles as well as foreigners from the diplomatic corps. I know that some day when I leave Poland I will miss them very much.

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