The Finnish economy was judged to be structurally different from those of the so called core European countries, such as Germany, France and the Benelux countries. The sceptics believed the economic stability of Finland was likely to suffer if economic development were too “asymmetric” vis-à-vis the core countries. There were good historical reasons for this early scepticism.
The structure of the Finnish economy had been one-sided. The share of forest-based industries in industrial production and exports, although declining, was much larger than in other European countries. Only one-third of Finland’s exports went to the prospective euro area countries, implying that the country was likely to be more vulnerable than others to shocks coming from outside the euro area.