Before she flies to Finland tomorrow for a two-day visit, the President, Mrs McAleese, would be well advised to brief herself on the latest developments in the European Union.
Her Finnish counterpart, Ms Tarja Halonen, is looking forward to a long chat about European integration, the EU's defence identity and of course, the Treaty of Nice.
A former foreign minister, Ms Halonen is keeping a close eye on Ireland's referendum campaign. Although she stresses that it is a matter for the Irish people alone to decide, she is clearly hoping that Ireland will ratify the treaty.
"For us, the importance was definitely that we should be able to take a step forward towards enlargement. We need the Nice Treaty for enlargement. If the Nice Treaty is not accepted, it would create a great obstacle," she said.
The Finnish President has a more powerful, political role than her Irish counterpart. She attends EU summits and sits in on cabinet meetings at least once a week. She can decide which Bills should go before parliament and can refuse to approve legislation even if it is not unconstitutional.
Ms Halonen, the first woman to serve as her country's president, succeeded Mr Martti Ahtisaari last year. A left-wing member of parliament since 1979, Ms Halonen is hugely popular in Finland, partly on account of her direct, down-to-earth manner.
As an unmarried mother, she brought up her daughter Anna and declined to marry her longterm partner, Mr Pentti Arajarvi, until after she became President. When they married in August last year, it was in a simple register office ceremony kept so secret that the press did not hear about it until after the event.
As we spoke in the elegant presidential palace last week, Ms Halonen was clearly looking forward to Mrs McAleese's visit. And she was keen to talk about what Ireland and Finland have in common, especially in defence policy.
Like Ireland, Finland is among the four EU member-states that are not part of NATO. Ms Halonen remains attached to Finland's tradition of military neutrality and she is adamant that her country will not apply for membership of NATO.
Unlike many of those who oppose the Nice Treaty, however, the Finnish President sees no conflict between this refusal to join a defence pact and the EU's emerging defence identity. She insists the Rapid Reaction Force is not an embryonic European army and predicts that the EU will not develop a defence pact of its own to rival NATO.
"We don't need another NATO. The European Union doesn't need a European army. What we need is crisis management forces, no more," she said.
For Ms Halonen, the EU's new military structures represent a development of the international peacekeeping tradition at which the Nordic countries, and Ireland, have excelled since the end of the second World War.
And she expresses satisfaction that, under the new arrangements, the four neutral member-states enjoy the same status as the 11 that are members of NATO.
"We don't lose our identity as a militarily non-aligned country. We feel that we are a bit more active, more involved in the new structures. But we still have our own character," she said.
If Ms Halonen is enthusiastic about the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy, she is decidedly lukewarm on German proposals for the future political shape of Europe. She is sharply dismissive of Mr Joschka Fischer's suggestion last week that a federation of nation-states represented the only possible outcome of the present debate.
"We would welcome a very broad and open debate about these questions. But it's not a very Finnish way to start by saying that there is only one outcome. I think it would be better to start with a discussion of what the EU should do and what the nation states should retain responsibility for, "she said.
Ms Halonen is confident that a sufficient number of EU member-states and most of the candidate countries remain so attached to the concept of national sovereignty that they will prevent any arrangement that would transfer too much power to supranational structures. And she warns that talking about federation could play into the hands of those who oppose any further integration.
"Even speaking about federation in Finland creates problems. We can see that a federation would solve some of the problems in Europe. But Finland and many other countries, especially among the candidate countries, that haven't been independent for such a long time are very cautious about this," she said.