The Finnish Government are in a quandry. Not wanting to stick their necks out and ratify the EU Constitution, after all that would be rude to the people of France and Holland, but at the same time wanting to prove their faith in the Euro religion. The Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, has mooted that the Finnish parliament’s approval in 2006 could have a positive effect on the atmosphere over the constitution. He went on to muse generally about the “right political momentum,” without defining what on earth this “momentum” could be.

The poor fellow is at sixes and sevens it seems. Finland will be taking over the Presidency of the Union in 2007 when everybody in Brussels hopes that that awkward bugger Chirac is out of the way and the French can have another chance. The last thing that the Finns want is not to have at the very least “politically approved” the document by then.