EP33 · Society · first published 2020-08-24
Security policy, the euro and NATO | Vesa Kanniainen | Negotiator 33
Vesa Kanniainen, emeritus professor of economics, examines Finland's permanent security deficit and why he considers EU membership one of the most significant post-war security decisions the country has made — even though he is best known as a euro critic. The episode covers a game-theoretic reading of the YYA treaty, the NATO option and the price of exercising it as shared responsibility for the Baltics, the costs of the common currency and the parallel-currency idea, and Kanniainen's work at the boundary of morality and economics from Adam Smith to Vernon Smith.
Security policy, the euro and NATO | Vesa Kanniainen | Negotiator 33
Summary: Vesa Kanniainen, emeritus professor of economics, examines Finland’s permanent security deficit and why he considers EU membership one of the most significant post-war security decisions the country has made — even though he is best known as a euro critic. The episode covers a game-theoretic reading of the YYA treaty, the NATO option and the price of exercising it as shared responsibility for the Baltics, the costs of the common currency and the parallel-currency idea, and Kanniainen’s work at the boundary of morality and economics from Adam Smith to Vernon Smith.
Key Themes
- NATO needs Finland more than Finland needs NATO: Discussed from 00:00 onward.
- The security review and a game-theoretic reading of the YYA treaty: Discussed from 02:00 onward.
- Federation theory and fiscal federalism: Discussed from 04:00 onward.
- Good institutions as a precondition for federation: Discussed from 06:00 onward.
- Euro-scepticism and EU support are two different things: Discussed from 08:00 onward.
- Finland’s security deficit and the scale of the EU: Discussed from 10:00 onward.
- Conscription and defence spending as a share of GDP: Discussed from 12:00 onward.
- Is NATO membership still a big step: Discussed from 14:00 onward.
- Shared responsibility for the Baltics as the price of membership: Discussed from 16:00 onward.
- The NATO option and the case for not exercising it: Discussed from 18:00 onward.
- The costs of the common currency and floating rates: Discussed from 20:00 onward.
- Returning to national currencies is not easy: Discussed from 22:00 onward.
- Poland and Sweden manage with their own currencies: Discussed from 24:00 onward.
- A constitution, institutions and defining power in the EU: Discussed from 26:00 onward.
- Poland and Hungary as recipients of the recovery package: Discussed from 28:00 onward.
- Where the work on morality started: the ethics of layoffs: Discussed from 30:00 onward.
- Evolutionary background, altruism and cooperation: Discussed from 32:00 onward.
- Adam Smith and Vernon Smith — two Smiths: Discussed from 34:00 onward.
- The institutional layer and a deepening model of the human being: Discussed from 36:00 onward.