Authors: Juho Kähkönen and Soili Nystén-Haarala*
NATO Applicant Finland is an Arctic Country with No Access to the Arctic Ocean.
Finland, with a land border with Norway, Sweden, and Russia, is sometimes described as an island because it is located on the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland and the eastern coast of the Gulf of Bothnia of the Baltic Sea. The 832-mile border with Russia has gained plenty of attention in the present geopolitical situation. The lifeline from the Baltic Sea to the North Sea goes through the narrow Danish Straits. Finnish cargo is mainly transported to and from the ports of the Baltic Sea. Before the war on Ukraine, Finnish trains ran to the east up to China through Russia.
Access to the Arctic Ocean is limited to the narrow roads through Norway, which are not qualified for the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), the major European transport corridors. The closest European TEN-T corridor turns west to Sweden at the bottom of the Gulf of Bothnia. Knowing this, it is no wonder that dreams of access to the Arctic Ocean emerge every now and then.
Most recently, the idea was embraced when the government of Juha Sipilä, with Anne Berner as the Minister of Transportation and Communications, was in power (May 2015 – June 2019). Anne Berner negotiated the future of transportation infrastructure and the Arctic Ocean railway with her Nordic colleagues in Norway and Sweden. In the early phases, the regional politicians in Finnish Lapland mostly either supported or adopted a positively curious attitude towards the proposed railway.
Nevertheless, the plan was later buried with both Norwegian and Finnish reports for their respective ministries in 2018. The reports found the plan lacked feasibility because of excessive costs. However, the Regional Council of Lapland still wanted to maintain the option for a railway in their regional plan. This attempt finally failed in 2021, and the plan was officially buried also in Lapland. The discussion on the plan was strongly polarized between the supporters and the opponents.
The way the prospects of the plan were presented reflected the ideas of economic connectivity and interdependence between Europe, Russia, and China – dreams, which after the Russian brutal attack on Ukraine turned out to be built on false perceptions of an economically dependent Russian Bear and an everlasting peace in Europe. Even after the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014, the future was full of expectations for economic prosperity; the opening of the Northeast Passage shortening the distance between Rotterdam and Shanghai by 26 percent and between Rotterdam and Yokohama by 37 percent. In addition to the railway, there is a plan to build a tunnel from Helsinki to Tallinn under the seabed. The Arctic railway, together with the tunnel, would connect the Asian and European markets through Finland and the melting Northeast Passage.
Chinese funding was sought for both of these mega infrastructure investments in railroad transportation. Chinese investments in Finland, however, have almost all failed, either because of financial difficulties of the Chinese investors or reservations of the Finnish Military and the Ministry of Defense. For some reason, both Chinese and Russian investments in land property often happened to target areas of strategic military importance. Additionally, one of the five options for the Arctic Ocean railway presented in the reports from 2018 was building a connection across the border to the Murman railway connecting Murmansk and St. Petersburg. The connection was not considered dangerous because rails are easy to dismantle, and cyberwar is a more likely prospect than traditional land warfare. However, Russia’s attack on Ukraine has shown that land warfare in Europe has not disappeared, and Russian military forces might arrogantly try to invade the country across the whole 832-mile-long border.
However, the actual opening of the Northeast Passage is, under any circumstances, still far in the future. It is not yet possible to navigate those dangerous waters without the expensive aid of Russian ice-breakers. Furthermore, European politicians turned a blind eye to the growing geopolitical tensions, for instance, the increasing threat of nuclear weapons in the Kola Peninsula next to Finnish and Norwegian borders. Nevertheless, it is common knowledge that the Arctic and its raw materials are of highly strategic military and economic importance for Russia. Even after the occupation of Crimea in 2014, Arctic cooperation was in the Arctic Council maintained as “the separate island of cooperation” while political tensions between superpowers increased. The Russian attack on Ukraine underlines the political risks associated with the transportation routes through the Russian economic zone. It is no wonder Finland is now applying for NATO membership, and developing the eastern transportation connection is forgotten.
National Interests Suppress Indigenous Rights
The Arctic Railway plan met strong resistance from the Sámi people, the only Indigenous people in Europe. As the supreme political body of the Sámi in Finland, the Sámi Parliament saw the railway as a threat to their culture and the reindeer herding in the heart of their culture. Oddly enough, the resistance and support from such allies as the Greenpeace seemed to come as a surprise to the supporters of the railway in Helsinki.
The region itself has a long history of ignoring the Sámi and seeing them as troublemakers resisting plans to develop the region. The Sámi are a small nation (77 00 – 103 00 depending on calculations) living in the northern areas of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. In Finland there are slightly more than 10 000 registered Sámi who vote in the elections of the Sámi Parliament.
Reindeer herding is a livelihood that requires much space as pastureland; reindeer can move freely in forests, which mainly belong to the State in the Finnish Lapland. Reindeers migrate and live with lichen, plants, and mushrooms. These half-tame animals are the property of reindeer herders, which as a profession is not ethnicity-based in Finland. Reindeer herding increasingly competes with other industries and infrastructure building. Reindeer herding is not just a traditional livelihood but also an industry in the market economy. Although the Sámi lives in a modern way in mixed communities, they still have strong kinship ties and an awareness of their own culture, which is distinct from the mainstream culture. The railway building option (Rovaniemi – Kirkenes) the Finnish Government preferred would have crossed the area of several Sámi reindeer herding cooperatives and disconnected the reindeer migration routes. It would have weakened the profitability of reindeer herding, a livelihood that has kept the remote areas of Lapland inhabited.
Throughout history, the Sámi have experienced racism and contempt from the main population. Their languages were not taught at schools before the 1970s. Just like Indigenous children in North America, they were sent to boarding schools, far away from home, to study in Finnish. Their voices were not heard, and their rights were not respected, for example, when the rivers in Lapland were harnessed for waterpower and forests were cut because of national interest after the World War II. Bad treatment has left scars and a considerable mistrust of the state power. The Sámi have fought for their rights in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, however, and have managed to make the state power recognize their rights.
In the new Finnish Constitution of 1994, the Sámi were granted cultural autonomy. A special Homeland Area was established in Upper Lapland. Within this area, the Sámi have the right to education in their own languages and the right to deal with authorities and in courts in their languages. They also have a Sámi Parliament, the representative self-government body, which plans and implements the cultural self-government guaranteed to the Sámi as an Indigenous people. The Sámi Parliament must be consulted when any project in the Homeland might affect their culture.
Reindeer herding and, for example, fishing are recognized as a part of Sámi culture. The duty to negotiation was drafted based on the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) principle of the ILO Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169). However, the Sámi Parliament and the Finnish government interpret the duty to consult differently way. The Sámi interpret the FPIC as a duty to ask for permission from the Indigenous population. The authorities, who should consult the Sámi, see it as a duty to consult and strive for a jointly agreed decision. If a joint agreement cannot be reached, the authorities can continue with the project. An even bigger problem is that authorities do not always remember to consult the Sámi. The existence of this duty is still relatively unknown, and if we add the earlier ways of conduct to ignorance, it is no wonder that the Sámi are suspicious of the Finnish state.
The Arctic railway plan is a typical example of conflicted relations between the Sámi and Finnish authorities. The sudden appearance of the plan astonished the Sámi and caused anxiety among reindeer herders about the future of their business and livelihood. The state authorities were also surprised by the strong Sámi reactions and emphasized that there was no project yet, only a discussion. The Sámi brought their position to international awareness through various media channels, while the supporters of the railway in Lapland boosted the idea to the EU and in Asia. The plan highlighted a conflict in the four municipalities of the Sámi Homeland Area, where the Sámi, with one exception, form only a minority of the population. The burial of the plan at the governmental level was mainly due to economic reasons, but abolishing the railway from the long-term regional plan can be seen as the victory of the Sámi and reindeer herding.
Is the Plan Actually Buried?
Following the Russian war on Ukraine, the multiple times buried attempt to build a railway from Finland to Norway has gained interest again. Member of Parliament from Lapland Mikko Kärnä brought the Arctic Railway back to the discussion by stressing that Finland would face significant challenges if transportation on the Baltic Sea were disturbed. This viewpoint reflects the understanding of Finland as an “island.” In practice, 80 percent of Finnish foreign trade goes through the Baltic Sea and as the transportation connection in northern Finland is poor, a railway to Norway would strengthen Finnish security of supply.
Soon after this comment, the Parliamentarian Committee on Transportation and Communication organized a visit to northernmost Finland, where the Arctic railway had been planned. The committee chair, MP Suna Kymäläinen explained the reason for the visit telling that Finland had to prepare for the scenario that traffic on the Baltic Sea would decline and analyzed how the export and import would be organized in such a situation. Currently, the roads connecting Finland to Norway are narrow and in poor condition.
The ongoing war reveals how the planned Arctic Railway is not tied only to the melting Arctic Ocean and shipping through the Northeast Passage. Instead, northern connections show how Finland is not an island but how the infrastructure development has focused on southern Finland around the capital for decades. The situation should not surprise anyone in Helsinki, as the authorities and politicians from the north have underlined for decades how weak the infrastructure in the north is and criticized how resources have been mainly used to develop southern infrastructure.
There is only one short rail track on the Finnish side still to be electrified, but the Arctic Ore Railway as well as the port of Narvik already operate at the limit of their capacity. The fact that the Swedish state mining company LKAB is already talking about strengthening the railway might indicate that the state is on board. Renovating the overloaded railway is, however, going to be a long and expensive project. Sweden has gradually built and electrified the railway from Southern Sweden to the Finnish border. The main driver of this project was the needs of the highly developed industry in northern Sweden – at least up till the port of Luleå.
The connection from Luleå to the Finnish border, however, could also have connected Sweden to the Russian market across Finland. Whereas for Finland, this track through Sweden to Narvik harbor, suddenly turned out to be a strategic corridor to the west in case the Baltic Sea corridor would close. As Sweden applied for NATO membership together with Finland, northern connections have a robust defense interest. In case of war, the Norwegian port of Narvik would be a priority to supply resources to the European Arctic. In Norway, a long-time NATO member country, the transport connections to Finland have re-emerged in the defense debate. The new geopolitical reality reveals how the northern connections would be essential for the national security of supply. However, we should not forget the rights of the Sámi people.
Geopolitics Amplify the Clash between National Interest and Sámi Rights
The discussion about the Arctic Railway reflects the polarized relationship between the Sámi and the Finnish authorities. The Sámi feel that they are never safe and that this time, their rights might be sacrificed at the shrine of national safety. Despite the new concerns about the security of supply, the state authorities now seem to take smaller, more realistic steps to improve transportation connections. A connection through the Swedish Ore Railway to Narvik in Norway is now a realistic option.
Perhaps a quicker way to improve access to the Arctic Ocean is to renovate national road 21 (E8) from Tornio to Tromsø harbor in Norway along the Swedish border. The demands to invest in the road, which is in a dangerously poor condition, had not been noticed in Helsinki before the Russian attack on Ukraine. Strengthening the existing infrastructure to the Arctic Ocean is supported in northern Finland. Improving existing roads and railways does not considerably increase the damage to reindeer herding either. The increased needs for security of supply, however, indicate that the rights of the Sámi are not the first priority in national transportation development. The Arctic Railway across the Sámi Homeland is on the agenda again. Strengthening democracy and taking the minorities’ differing worldviews seriously would be a more civilized way of coexisting in the western world and something the Nordic countries could be expected to do better.
*Soili Nystén-Haarala, Professor of Commercial Law, Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Lapland.
