Finland To Review NATO Membership, Defense Policy
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, HELSINKI
Finland will examine the possibility of joining NATO as it reviews its overall defense policy following geopolitical changes since the end of the Cold War, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said August 14.
A commission consisting of representatives of the Finnish presidency and the ministries of foreign affairs, defense and finance will submit its conclusions to parliament sometime next year, Vanhanen told reporters.
“Finland’s foreign and security policy operating environment has changed and it continues to do so in a number of ways. The whole international system has entered a new development phase,” a statement issued by the government read.
Finland, which shares a 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border with Russia — of which it was a grand duchy from 1809 until 1917 — is militarily non-aligned in peacetime.
While a majority of Finns are opposed to membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, numerous politicians, in particular pro-NATO Conservatives, feel that Finland’s military non-alignment is outdated.
Finland joined the European Union in 1995, and has since 1994 taken part in NATO exercises and operations under the alliance’s Partnership for Peace program, thereby eliminating any doubt about its alignment, NATO supporters argue.
In its statement on Tuesday, the government noted that NATO had recently “completed an important enlargement round.”
“Due to its internal development, Russia is seeking for a strengthened role in international politics. Globalisation and new global threats emphasise the significance of the broad security concept in security policy,” it said.
Long wary of an invasion from the Soviet Union, against whom it fought two wars between 1939 and 1944, post-war Finland built up a primarily land-based army that is not well-adapted to today’s military challenges.
Finland would have few troops or materiel to contribute to NATO operations if it were to join the organization.
The Nordic country currently has some 750 troops taking part in U.N. operations in Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Afghanistan, and Vanhanen pointed out on August 14 that Finland would not be able to contribute troops to a U.N. mission in Darfur due to a lack of resources.
Experts remain skeptical about the defense policy review to be undertaken by the commission.
“White books are announced each time there is a change of government ... but so far the answers have always been the same,” Hanna Ojanen of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs told AFP.
