Gone are the days when President Sauli Niinisto was photographed in the company of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin while playing hockey. Today Niinisto himself, together with Prime Minister Sanna Marin, announced in a declaration their support for Finland’s “without delay” accession to NATO. The Helsinki decision will be announced on Sunday, following the planned parliamentary debate. “Being a member of NATO would strengthen Finland’s security. As a member of NATO, Finland would strengthen the alliance as a whole ”, say Niinisto and Marin,“ Finland must apply for NATO membership without delay ”. For the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, «the unity and solidarity of NATO and the EU have never been so close. President Sauli Niinistö and Prime Minister Sanna Marin are paving the way for Finland to join NATO. A historic step which, once taken, will make a significant contribution to European security. With Russia waging war in Ukraine it is a powerful signal of deterrence ».
The Kremlin’s reaction was immediate: “Finland’s entry into NATO will certainly be a threat to Russia”.
The Finns ask for NATO
And citizens’ support for this proposal has grown in recent months. “In recent months, public support for NATO membership has increased in Finland. We have reached 70%. Strong support was expressed in the polls which were followed by in-depth reflections by Finnish political parties. Almost all parties have now organized a convention dedicated to joining NATO in recent months, ”said Finnish Foreign Minister, Pekka Haavisto, in a hearing in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.
Why joining now?
The reasons for this initiative are manifold. First of all, the war in Ukraine prompted Finland – historically always neutral in European and world conflicts – to reconsider its position. And then because, as the Finnish Foreign Minister, Pekka Haavisto explained, in a hearing in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, “Russia’s unpredictable behavior is a huge problem. Russia is ready to carry out operations which are at high risk and which will also bring a large number of victims to us ». Haavisto also accused the Kremlin of “deploying forces and bringing 100,000 soldiers to the borders. The Russian invasion of Ukraine – he added – has changed the European and Finnish security environment, however Finland does not face an immediate military threat ».
The complicated relationship with Moscow
It was Russia that made Finland when, in 1809, Moscow created an autonomous grand duchy from the former Swedish territory and then, overwhelmed by the revolution, recognized its independence in 1917. And it would soon try to undo it, when on November 30, 1939 the The Soviet Union attacked the neighboring country. The Finns put up an impressive resistance and wrote memorable pages of military glory, handing over to legend figures such as Simo Haya, the deadly sniper who went down in history as “the white death”. With the Moscow Treaty of March 1940, Helsinki was forced to cede 10% of its territory to the USSR. But the death toll at the end of the war was approximately six Russian fallen for every Finnish fallen.
Even in the subsequent conflicts that involved Helsinki in the Second World War (the war of continuation, again against the USSR from June ’41 to September ’44, and the war in Lapland, this time against the Germans, from September ’44 to April ’45) the Finns’ best ally turned out to be their own territory, full of lakes and forests that allowed the enemy to be bagged in an unknown and hostile environment where numerical superiority mattered little.
The fate of Finland at the end of the conflict was similar to that of Italy. Once a separate peace was concluded with the Allies before the German defeat, the country’s army was forced to fight against former Germanic comrades to expel them from their borders. However, the interlocutors of Helsinki were not the Anglo-Americans, but the Soviets, who in the Paris treaties of 1947 imposed severe conditions on Finland, snatching further territories from it, including the outlet to the Barents Sea and part of Karelia. The USSR would continue to have a heavy influence on Finnish international politics, imposing on it a forced neutrality, enshrined in the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance of 1948. The treaty prohibited the signatories from joining a military alliance against each other and it prevented Finland from allowing its territory to be used for an attack on the USSR.
The collapse of the USSR
It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union that Finland formally abandoned neutrality and entered into military cooperation with the West, adopting mandatory conscription as a precaution necessitated by the extensive land border with Russia. The following years would see the country become fully interoperable with NATO thanks to the development of an army in line with the standards of the alliance that would participate in operations in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Russian annexation of Crimea also forced Helsinki to a paradigm shift, which resulted in a further increase in integration with NATO, with frequent participation in joint military exercises. The government, meanwhile, had not stopped stressing the neutrality of the country, considering the possible adhesion to NATO already in itself a deterrent. The invasion of Ukraine, however, forced another paradigm shift, pushing Helsinki towards an entry into NATO which, until a few months ago, appeared to be a possibility but not so immediate.