The speaker of the Finnish parliament, Mr. Paavo Lipponen is touring around Europe in order to trade himself into the top positions of the European Union. Larko has the dubious honor of knowing Mr. Lipponen for almost two decades. This is reason enough to put it that just about anybody - perhaps with the exeption of Silvio Berlusconi - would be more suitable for the top EU assignments than Paavo Lipponen.

The European Union is to get a new comission no later than 2004. Should the present comission, lead by Mr. Romano Prodi, be forced to resign because of yet another corruption scandal, the election of a new comission may be in the agenda even sooner. The constitutional treaty, which is currently a subject of negotiations in Rome, may call upon election of new top officials in the near future. A European president and an EU foreign minister may be elected within a couple of years.

Paavo Lipponen has not kept it secret that he is very much interested in these top EU assignments. Becoming the chairman of the EU comission is apparently his minimum goal. To be elected as a simple member of the comission would not be good enough for His Lordship. To become the president of the comission or the foreign minister or indeed the president of Europe would be the fulfillment of his dreams. For Europe, it would be a major disaster!

Paavo Lipponen was the prime minister of Finland for eight consecutive years. During that period, Finland gained a position as a solid member country. It was also a historical period for the EU: the new euro currency was succesfully introduced and the process of enlargment to the former Eastern Europe was brought to an end. Thus, Paavo Lipponen no doubt has a comprehensive experience on decision making in the European Union.

If the EU were to elect an emperor or a dictator, Paavo Lipponen would be the ideal candidate for the office. His character would make him a very succesful autocratic governor. Lipponen can listen to a discussion without a problem and then in a sovereign manner adopt decisions as he pleases. Any contradicting arguments will be abruptly set aside.

Larko was somewhat politically activ during the 1980'ies when Lipponen was the president of the Helsinki district of the Social Democratic Party in Finland. At the district congress Paavo would not put seconded motions to a vote if he did not like them. He could also intimidate and threaten delegates who were too slow to shut up. Larko has some first hand experience on this.

After the municipal election of 1988, the district congress voted not to re-elect Mr. Ylermi Runko as the chairman of the City Developing Board of Helsinki. Democracy was not the way Lipponen wanted to take decisions, so the executive committee on his demand decided to over rule the decision of the congress allthough the congress is supposed to be the supreme organ of the oragnisation. But Paavo Lipponen has another understanding of the concept of democracy: it is only good enough as long as his view gets the majority vote.

Paavo Lipponen made what he called "a provincial excursion" to Kontula, a suburb in the north eastern corner of Helsinki on the 11th August 2003. This trip received very large nation wide media attention in Finland, whereby it was suggested that the speaker of the parliament listened to what the simple suburb citizens had to say. In fact, the simple citizens had no access to His Lordship, he only saw carefully selected representatives of friendly minded organisations. This was, however, not mentioned in the media coverage. Mr. Lipponen has such a total power position in Finland that the otherwise so critical media shamelessly licks his right honorable butt.

The Finnish prime minister, Mr. Matti Vanhanen spoke in a radio interview on 12th October 2003 very warmly on behalf of Paavo Lipponen's candidacy to top European assignments. Larko is convinced that the prime minister was not being quite sincere. As the president of EU, foreign minister or chairman of the EU comission Lipponen would not have the time nor the energy to interfere with the Finnish government business as much as he does in his capacity of the speaker and party leader. Vanhanen would no doubt be happy to see him as far away from Finland as possible.

The European Union has - with good cause - been critisized for a lack of democracy. If a dubious despot like Paavo Lipponen is to be elected as the chairman of the European comission or to any other top EU assignment, the democracy is not likely to increase in the European Union. Silvio Berlusconi will propably not be assigned to these top jobs because as the prime minister of Italy he has shown remarkable creativity in combinig his personal interests with the interest of the government. With the exeption of Mr. Berlusconi, just about anybody would be more suitable than Paavo Lipponen to these assignments.