I may grumble from time to time about the Economist, but “The Finn Red Line” is a headline of the highest order. Bravo!

The article it tops is also well worth a read.

The key points:

It is true that Finland has the most to lose from a pooling of sovereign debts. The IMF reckons the combined gross debt of euro-area countries will peak at 91% of GDP next year, when the ratio in Finland will be just 53%, the lowest of any euro-zone country bar Estonia and Luxembourg. Finland’s borrowing costs are roughly the same as Germany’s. After Japan and Italy, Finland has the most rapidly ageing population among rich countries, so it is wary of adding to its debts. And having recovered from a nasty banking crisis in the 1990s through their own efforts (albeit with a favourable tailwind from the world economy), Finns are hostile to bail-outs.
Finland might also have least to gain from keeping the euro show on the road. Its banks have little direct exposure to the euro zone’s troubled periphery, in contrast to those of France and Germany. Its economy is less integrated into the euro zone than those of other northern bail-out grumps, such as the Netherlands. Only 31% of Finnish exports go to other euro-zone countries, a smaller share than is sold by Eurosceptic Britain. Five of Finland’s seven biggest foreign markets lie outside the euro zone. Its biggest supplier is Russia and its largest single customer is Sweden, whose economy is growing more quickly than Finland’s. Norway is also doing better. Finns fed up with being asked to stump up for Greece and the rest cannot have missed that their nearest neighbours seem to be thriving outside the euro.

So does a Finnish departure from the euro — a Fixit — lie ahead?

The Economist doesn’t think so:

The odds are still that the Finns could be dragged by the Germans into some form of grand bargain that involves pooling debts. Public opinion is still in favour of staying in the euro, not least because of the deep-rooted fear of being pushed back into Russia’s orbit.

That’s broadly correct, I reckon. Nevertheless, recent opinion polls show gains for the truly euroskeptic True Finns and the increasingly euroskeptic Social Democrats (who are, along with just about everyone in Finland other than the True Finns, part of the governing coalition), and the questions remain:

How much of their democracy — and, quite possibly, their prosperity — are the Finns prepared to sacrifice to keep the single currency going?