EU flags at Niinistö- Putin press conference play a role

Political analysts here on Wednesday hailed the stage setup of the press conference following the talks between Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and visiting in Sochi, which had EU flags in addition to the flags of Russia and Finland.

"The staging of the press conference said more than a thousand words," said Sylvia Bjon, a political analyst to a Swedish language newspaper Hufvudsstadsbladet.

While the stage of top level Finnish-Russian press conferences usually includes two or more flags of both countries behind the podium, the setup in Sochi on Wednesday included four flags of Russia countered by two flags of Finland and two of the European Union (EU) on the other side.

Bjon noted that the Helsinki summit of U.S. and Russian presidents on July 16 had been preceded by some erroneous writing by a U.S. high level publication about "neutral Finland".

In his press conference in Helsinki at the end of the summit, Niinistö had taken up the matter and underlined that Finland is a member of the EU and a partner of NATO.

In the press conference on Wednesday, Putin said he hopes the relations between the EU and Russia would improve during the time when Finland is the chairman of the EU in the second half of 2019.

Mika Aaltola, the program director of the Finnish Institute for International Affairs, said that Putin showed respect to Finland as he did not repeat the words of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu last month.

In a public event in Russia, Shoigu had described joint Finnish and Swedish maneuvers with NATO as a threat and talked about counter measures.

Aaltola, commenting to news consortium Lannen Media, noted Putin's statement that Russia "has to react if NATO infrastructure gets closer to the borders of Russia".

The dialogue between Finland and Russia is "fluent," Aaltola said. "But it does not mean that the two countries would be making progress in taking care of difficult issues."

Jussi Niemelainen, an analyst for a Finnish language newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, noted that Putin had not mentioned the relationship between Finland and NATO.

Niinistö said later in the press conference that he had not heard "any criticism of Finland during the meeting with Putin."

Noting that Putin had been very "agreeable" in the way he talked about Finland in the press conference, Niemelainen expressed the view that this could mean that Putin has accepted the current state of Finnish-Russian relations as "the new normal".