Picture: Tom Dodd, Ambassador to Finland
Another interesting week in Finland began with Runebergin Päivää and Penkkarit (a candy-throwing parade of some 1,000 high school seniors celebrating the end of their studies before studying 3-4 months for matriculation exams) and continued on Thursday with an evening with Tom Dodd, the British ambassador to Finland who was to help clarify the current Brexit situation for Brits living and working in Finland. Hosted by the city of Jyväskylä and the Anglo Guild, Tom Dodd was to be present in a small and up-close venue at the Alba Hotelli which is located on the University of Jyväskylä campus. Meggie and I decided to pay a visit and see if there was any new information to be had in this unpredictable and often confusing situation.
We got to the hotel a little early and had a great time chatting in the bar overlooking the lake while we waited. We entered a short while later to find ourselves with the ambassador and a few business leaders-only about 10 people in all (including us). The room looked ready to host a UN peace summit, but we decided to stay even though we felt a little out of place. Graham Burns, a likeable British businessman who runs the Anglo Guild made us feel at home as we introduced ourselves and chatted about our respective ties to Finland. It turns out he runs an English management team and has been living in town for the past fourteen years. The ambassador came over and we shook hands and made introductions again.
The conference began with a presentation by two representatives of the City of Jyväskylä who are leading the new Hippos Center project the city has committed to. The center will be a huge sports and well-being facility housing three major arenas in an area 160,000 square meters (sixteen football fields). It will employ about 1,000 individuals and will increase the numbers of visitors at the current much smaller facility from 1.5 million to 3.5 million per year. As you would expect, the budget for this project is huge; 220-250 million euros and will take five years to complete. The city is having a rally for foreign investors this summer and are very eager to have British support. Thankfully, I didn’t have to break open the checkbook. I was intrigued though because the emphasis of the facility is not only on sports and sports medicine, but also the balance of well-being for people: “brain and heart” as they so eloquently put it. The whole presentation was very down to earth and I for one wish them well.
After a light dinner, Tom Dodd took the floor to talk about Brexit. He did a very good job in my opinion detailing the overall timeline of Brexit from the referendum to where we are now trying to work out a new deal. He also included the three different types of deal including the least desirable no-deal and how this could possibly impact Brits living in Finland and Finns living in the U.K. Although there wasn’t too much in the way of new information, the ambassador explained some of the options and possible changes the Finnish government is considering for Brits as well as his own personal views. The Brits were justifiably nervous about their living situations especially as becoming a Finnish citizen is notoriously difficult (the language test is 5 hours long by all accounts). Basically, the Brits were advised to check in with the Finnish authorities as it is down to them and if you want to live here, you have to play by their rules.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom though. Tom Dodd reminded everyone that the annual garden party will go ahead in June, and that other community events such as the open bar at the British Embassy will continue once per month. Brits just need to show up with their passport. Wait…what?!
Meg and I had a lot to mull over on our walk home. Things will be very different from the open EU I’d imagined for her years ago. Still, you never really know what may happen, and there’s always the open bar night at the embassy…