Chile–Finland relations
Encyclopedia
Chile–Finland relations are foreign relations between Chile
and Finland
. Chile recognised Finland's independence on June 17, 1919. Diplomatic relations between them were established in 1931 and have been continuously maintained, despite pressures at times to discontinue them. The two countries maintain resident ambassadors in both capitals.
, Argentina
. Finland has an embassy in Santiago de Chile, three honorary consulates in Antofagasta
, Concepción
and Punta Arenas. Permanent representation at a subambassadoral level was first established in the early 1970s.
Initially Chile was represented in Finland through its embassies in Stockholm
, Sweden
and Oslo
, Norway
. Lucio Parada Dagnino was appointed resident ambassador in 1991 and Chile opened an embassy in Helsinki
in 1991.
Diplomatic relations were maintained throughout World War II
despite Finland being allied with the Axis Powers
. The 1973 Chilean coup d'état and the Pinochet dictatorship brought pressures in both countries to cut off diplomatic ties. Relations were improved following Chilean transition to democracy
.
Under Salvador Allende
Chile had maintained diplomatic relations with the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, including the German Democratic Republic
. After the 1973 Chilean coup there relations were severed. Finland was entrusted with the responsibility of representing the East German interests in Chile.
s Finland, Patricio Aylwin
visited Finland in 1993, Ricardo Lagos
in 2002 and Michelle Bachelet
in 2007. Finnish presidents have made two state visits to Chile, Martti Ahtisaari
visited Chile in 1997 and Tarja Halonen
in 2003, also attending the innaguration of president Ricardo Lagos in March, 2000.
.
Economic ties between Chile and Finland center around copper and forestry. Chile is the world leader in copper
production while Finland has been the world leader in copper smelting en extracting technology. Flash smelting
was developed in Finland by Outokumpu
in the late 1940s and is now the standard process for refining sulfur-containing ores. Outokumpu has provided technology to the Chilean copper industry from the 1960s and owned 50% of a copper mine in Zadivar. Other companies serving the Chilean mining industry include Metso
, Tamrock and Larox
and Outotec
, formerly the technology division of Outokumpu.
In the early 2000s Outokumpu was a prospective partner for National Copper Corporation, Codelco
in its $1 billion venture to build a copper smelter and refinery in the port city of Mejillones
to handle ore from the Chuquicamata
mine. The venture was promoted by president Halonen's state visit in 2003.
In May 2009 the Finnish Stora Enso
and Chilean Celulosa Arauco y Constitución
announced a € 253 million deal that would make their joint venture the largest landowner in Uruguay
.
In 1993, Finnish researchers were sent to Chile to collect data on logging operations, which began a continued relationship of Finnish-Chilean cooperation on forestry
.
In 2003, both countries met several times to discuss business opportunities and "the Chilean economy and investment prospects to major Finnish companies".
) refinery in Harjavalta
. Finnish exports to Chile vary considerably from one year to year, because they are closely related to investments made
by the mining and forestry industries in Chile.
was an inspiration for left-wing groups in Finland, including the Taistoists. The 1973 coup d'état brought to Finland the first wave of refugees from outside Europe and created a solidarity movement. A friendship society, Suomi-Chile-Seura was established in 1973 to support the refugees. Future president Tarja Halonen served as the chairwoman of the society in the 1980s and is its honorary chairman.
The International Commission of Enquiry into the Crimes of the Military Junta in Chile held multiple sessions in Finland, including its first session in 1974 in Dipoli
, Espoo
and its 4th session in 1976 at the Finlandia Hall
in Helsinki
.
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
and Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
. Chile recognised Finland's independence on June 17, 1919. Diplomatic relations between them were established in 1931 and have been continuously maintained, despite pressures at times to discontinue them. The two countries maintain resident ambassadors in both capitals.
Diplomatic relations
Finland's first non-resident ambassador to Chile was G.A. Gripenberg, resident in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who was appointed ambassador after diplomatic ties were established on February 20, 1931. Until 1991 Finland was represented in Chile through its embassy in Buenos AiresBuenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
. Finland has an embassy in Santiago de Chile, three honorary consulates in Antofagasta
Antofagasta
Antofagasta is a port city in northern Chile, about north of Santiago. It is the capital of Antofagasta Province and Antofagasta Region. According to the 2002 census, the city has a population of 296,905...
, Concepción
Concepción, Chile
Concepción is a city in Chile, capital of Concepción Province and of the Biobío Region or Region VIII. Greater Concepción is the second-largest conurbation in the country, with 889,725 inhabitants...
and Punta Arenas. Permanent representation at a subambassadoral level was first established in the early 1970s.
Initially Chile was represented in Finland through its embassies in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
. Lucio Parada Dagnino was appointed resident ambassador in 1991 and Chile opened an embassy in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
in 1991.
Diplomatic relations were maintained throughout World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
despite Finland being allied with the Axis Powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
. The 1973 Chilean coup d'état and the Pinochet dictatorship brought pressures in both countries to cut off diplomatic ties. Relations were improved following Chilean transition to democracy
Chilean transition to democracy
The Chilean transition to democracy began when a Constitution establishing a transition itinerary was approved in a plebiscite. From March 11, 1981 to March 11, 1990, several organic constitutional laws were approved leading to the final restoration of democracy...
.
Under Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
Chile had maintained diplomatic relations with the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, including the German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
. After the 1973 Chilean coup there relations were severed. Finland was entrusted with the responsibility of representing the East German interests in Chile.
State visits
Three of the four post-Pinochet Chilean presidents have made state visitState visit
A state visit is a formal visit by a foreign head of state to another nation, at the invitation of that nation's head of state. State visits are the highest form of diplomatic contact between two nations, and are marked by ceremonial pomp and diplomatic protocol. In parliamentary democracies, heads...
s Finland, Patricio Aylwin
Patricio Aylwin
Patricio Aylwin Azócar was the first president of Chile after its return to democratic rule in 1990, following the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.- Early life :...
visited Finland in 1993, Ricardo Lagos
Ricardo Lagos
Ricardo Froilán Lagos Escobar is a lawyer, economist and social democrat politician, who served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. He won the 1999-2000 presidential election by a narrow margin in a runoff over Independent Democrat Union candidate Joaquín Lavín...
in 2002 and Michelle Bachelet
Michelle Bachelet
Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria is a Social Democrat politician who was President of Chile from 11 March 2006 to 11 March 2010. She was the first woman president of her country...
in 2007. Finnish presidents have made two state visits to Chile, Martti Ahtisaari
Martti Ahtisaari
Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari is a Finnish politician, the tenth President of Finland , Nobel Peace Prize laureate and United Nations diplomat and mediator, noted for his international peace work....
visited Chile in 1997 and Tarja Halonen
Tarja Halonen
Tarja Kaarina Halonen is the incumbent President of Finland. The first female to hold the office, Halonen had previously been a member of the parliament from 1979 to 2000 when she resigned after her election to the presidency...
in 2003, also attending the innaguration of president Ricardo Lagos in March, 2000.
Economic cooperation
Direct communication links between Finland and Chile were first established around 1850, when Finnish "Sitka clippers" started serving Russian America and Kamchatka, with regular stops in ValparaisoValparaíso
Valparaíso is a city and commune of Chile, center of its third largest conurbation and one of the country's most important seaports and an increasing cultural center in the Southwest Pacific hemisphere. The city is the capital of the Valparaíso Province and the Valparaíso Region...
.
Economic ties between Chile and Finland center around copper and forestry. Chile is the world leader in copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
production while Finland has been the world leader in copper smelting en extracting technology. Flash smelting
Flash smelting
Flash smelting is a smelting process for sulfur-containing ores including chalcopyrite. The process was developed by Outokumpu in Finland and first applied at the Harjavalta plant in 1949 for smelting copper ore. It has also been adapted for nickel and lead production.The process uses the...
was developed in Finland by Outokumpu
Outokumpu
Outokumpu is a group of companies headquartered in Espoo, Finland, aimed at stainless steel. The company has approx. 8 000 employees in about 30 different countries worldwide...
in the late 1940s and is now the standard process for refining sulfur-containing ores. Outokumpu has provided technology to the Chilean copper industry from the 1960s and owned 50% of a copper mine in Zadivar. Other companies serving the Chilean mining industry include Metso
Metso
Metso Corporation was created in 1999 through the merger of Valmet and Rauma and is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland. Metso is a global supplier of process industry machinery and systems as well as know-how and aftermarket services...
, Tamrock and Larox
Larox
Larox, founded in 1977 and headquartered at Lappeenranta, Finland, is a Finnish engineering company that develops, designs and manufactures industrial filters for use in mining and metallurgy, chemical processing and related industries...
and Outotec
Outotec
Outotec Oyj is a Finnish company, headquartered in Espoo, aimed at providing technologies and services for the metal and mineral processing industries...
, formerly the technology division of Outokumpu.
In the early 2000s Outokumpu was a prospective partner for National Copper Corporation, Codelco
Codelco
CODELCO is the Chilean state owned copper mining company formed in 1976 from the foreign owned copper companies that were nationalised in 1971. The headquarters are in Santiago and the seven-man board of directors is appointed by the President of the Republic...
in its $1 billion venture to build a copper smelter and refinery in the port city of Mejillones
Mejillones
Mejillones is a Chilean port city and commune in Antofagasta Province, Antofagasta Region. Its name is the plural form of the Spanish mejillón meaning "mussel", referring to a particularly abundant species and preferred staple food of its indigenous inhabitants. It is situated in the northern side...
to handle ore from the Chuquicamata
Chuquicamata
Chuquicamata, or "Chuqui" as it is more familiarly known, is by digged volume the biggest open pit copper mine in the world, located in the north of Chile, 215 km northeast of Antofagasta and 1,240 km north of the capital, Santiago...
mine. The venture was promoted by president Halonen's state visit in 2003.
In May 2009 the Finnish Stora Enso
Stora Enso
Stora Enso Oyj is a Finnish pulp and paper manufacturer, formed by the merger of Swedish mining and forestry products company Stora and Finnish forestry products company Enso-Gutzeit Oy in 1998. It is headquartered in Helsinki, and it has approximately 29,000 employees...
and Chilean Celulosa Arauco y Constitución
Celulosa Arauco y Constitución
Celulosa Arauco y Constitución is a Chilean wood pulp, engineered wood and forestry company controlled by Anacleto Angelini's economic group; Empresas Copec. As of 2006, CELCO/ARAUCO has five pulp mills in Chile and one in Argentina...
announced a € 253 million deal that would make their joint venture the largest landowner in Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
.
In 1993, Finnish researchers were sent to Chile to collect data on logging operations, which began a continued relationship of Finnish-Chilean cooperation on forestry
Forestry
Forestry is the interdisciplinary profession embracing the science, art, and craft of creating, managing, using, and conserving forests and associated resources in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands...
.
In 2003, both countries met several times to discuss business opportunities and "the Chilean economy and investment prospects to major Finnish companies".
Trade
Chile is the second-largest Latin American trade partner for Finland, after Brazil, with its main import being copper ore, followed by fruits and wines. Chilean copper ore is the main source of foreign ore for the Outokumpu (now BolidenBoliden
Boliden is a locality situated in Skellefteå Municipality, Västerbotten County, Sweden with 1,515 inhabitants in 2005. It lies 28,5 kilometers from Skellefteå City....
) refinery in Harjavalta
Harjavalta
Harjavalta is a town and municipality of Finland.It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Satakunta region. The town has a population of and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is ....
. Finnish exports to Chile vary considerably from one year to year, because they are closely related to investments made
Megaproject
A megaproject is an extremely large-scale investment project. Megaprojects are typically defined as costing more than US$1 billion and attracting a lot of public attention because of substantial impacts on communities, environment, and budgets. Megaprojects can also be defined as "initiatives that...
by the mining and forestry industries in Chile.
Cultural ties
The socialist Allende governmentSalvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
was an inspiration for left-wing groups in Finland, including the Taistoists. The 1973 coup d'état brought to Finland the first wave of refugees from outside Europe and created a solidarity movement. A friendship society, Suomi-Chile-Seura was established in 1973 to support the refugees. Future president Tarja Halonen served as the chairwoman of the society in the 1980s and is its honorary chairman.
The International Commission of Enquiry into the Crimes of the Military Junta in Chile held multiple sessions in Finland, including its first session in 1974 in Dipoli
Dipoli
Dipoli is a conference center located in Otaniemi, Espoo, Finland as a part of the campus of the Helsinki University of Technology ....
, Espoo
Espoo
Espoo is the second largest city and municipality in Finland. The population of the city of Espoo is . It is part of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area along with the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, and Kauniainen. Espoo shares its eastern border with Helsinki and Vantaa, while enclosing Kauniainen....
and its 4th session in 1976 at the Finlandia Hall
Finlandia Hall
Finlandia Hall is a concert hall with a congress wing in Helsinki, Finland, by Töölönlahti bay. The building was designed by Alvar Aalto. The work began in 1967 and was completed in 1971.-Design and building:...
in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
.