a blog by Peter Leonard
Interesting article about the autonomous Swedish-speaking Finnish region of Åland's potential to single-handedly derail the European Constitution over chewing tobacco. The EU's copious rules and regulations over health and safety have long banned snus, but Sweden itself apparently had an exception made as a condition of joining the EU. The Ålanders, who are culturally and linguistically Swedish but landed in Finland thanks to quirks in the aftermath of World War I, have no such protection under Finland's accession treaty to the EU, relying instead on their status as an autonomous region in Europe to protect their right to chewing tobacco. Now matters are coming to a head as the European Court of Justice seeks to stamp out tongue cancer once and for all -- as well as ensure cleaner sidewalks.
Interestingly Åland, which lies right outside the Stockholm archipelago, was the reason Finland and Sweden nearly opened hostilities against eachother in the buildup to the Second World War. Helsinki wanted to fortify the islands with troops to protect against an expected Soviet occupation of Finland. Sweden, under the leadership of the conflict-averse Per Albin Hansson, refused to coöperate with the re-militarization of the region -- or even commit troops to Finland's defense in case of Russian invasion at all. The eventual military action in the Karelian peninsula shifted attention away from what could have been the only inter-Nordic armed conflict in the 20th century.