Battered by the global debt crisis and the shift to online media, the region's industry is currently estimated to have 10-15 percent of overcapacity in paper grades such as newsprint, and magazine and office paper.
The world's two biggest producers of those graphic paper grades, whose headquarters are separated by a few hundred meters on Helsinki's seafront market square, have closed down several paper mills since 2006, but more consolidation in the European paper industry is seen as inevitable.
Analysts say the ideal solution may be a merger of UPM and Stora Enso that would create the world's number one paper company by any measure, which would give the combined entity substantial control over capacity and therefore, prices, helping rivals as well as themselves.
