Tarja Cronberg is a Finnish politician who belongs to the Green League party. She served as a member of the European Parliament from 2011 until 2014 and as a Member of the Finnish Parliament from 2003 to 2007. She headed her party from 2005 until 2009 and was the Minister of Labour in the Finnish government from 2007 to 2009 as part of Matti Vanhanen’s second cabinet.
After her time in the EU Parliament, she was designated a Distinguished Associate Fellow of SIPRI, first in the European Security Program and later in the Nuclear and Arms Control Program. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Tarja Cronberg attended a controversial seminar in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, raising concerns. She travelled to Kaliningrad at the expense of the Russian state to participate in a gathering.
Swedish daily Expressen noted Cronberg’s presence at the event, stating that the seminar has come to be widely regarded as part of Russia’s hybrid influencing drive. The conferences were characterised as a Russian influence operation that strived to provide a pro-Russian narrative and criticism of NATO simultaneously.
The four-day gathering was held to mark the 300th anniversary of the birth of philosopher Immanuel Kant but a joint study by Nordic and Baltic media outlets has found evidence that it was “part of a Russian government action to justify its war in Ukraine and weaken pro-NATO
View in the Baltic region”.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko unlocked the seminar by reading out a hello from Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was observed by the playing of the Russian national anthem. It also came to light that Cronberg followed the seminar with the permission of Dan Smith, her director at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), but Smith informed that Cronenberg herself made the conclusion to attend the event and was not there to represent Sipri.
In the wake of the debate, the University of Eastern Finland decided to withdraw Cronberg’s planned appointment as an honorary doctorate because she arrived at conferences that go against the university’s principles and procedures.
