Finland is to become the 31st member of the world’s biggest military alliance today, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said yesterday, adding that he hoped Sweden could join in coming months.
“This is a historic week,” Stoltenberg told reporters on the eve of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels. “From tomorrow, Finland will be a full member of the alliance.”
The former Norwegian prime minister said that this afternoon, “we will raise the Finnish flag for the first time here at the NATO headquarters. It will be a good day for Finland’s security, for Nordic security and for NATO as a whole.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
Stoltenberg said that Turkey, the last country to have ratified Finland’s membership, would hand its official texts to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken today.
Stoltenberg said he would then invite Finland to do the same.
“It is a historic moment for us. For Finland, the most important objective at the meeting will be to emphasize NATO’s support to Ukraine as Russia continues its illegal aggression,” Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto said in a statement. “We seek to promote stability and security throughout the Euro-Atlantic region.”
Photo: Bloomberg
The development comes as Finnish voters gave a boost to conservative parties in Sunday’s election, depriving Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin of another term.
Marin won popularity for her Cabinet’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and for the nation’s strong support for Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion last year. However, the election was largely fought over economic issues, with voters in the nation of 5.5 million people shifting their allegiances significantly to parties on the political right, as they seek solutions to rising state debt, inflation and other economic problems.
The bloated debt will pose a challenge for the new government, particularly since NATO membership requires Finland to increase its defense spending.
The center-right National Coalition Party won 20.8 percent of the vote, putting it in a position to try to form a government. The right-wing populist party The Finns won 20.1 percent and Marin’s Social Democrats 19.9 percent.
Juhana Aunesluoma, a professor of political history at the University of Helsinki, said that about one-third of the votes went to left-wing parties and two-thirds to parties on the right.
It was “a big swing from left to right,” Aunesluoma said in an interview.
The winning party in Finland traditionally starts government formation talks, and the National Coalition, led by Petteri Orpo — a 53-year-old former finance minister — is expected to begin negotiations next week with the goal of putting together a Cabinet enjoying a majority in the 200-seat parliament, the Eduskunta.
Orpo said late on Sunday that he intends to negotiate with all parties “to find the best possible majority government for Finland.”
If Orpo, the most likely candidate to be the next prime minister, ends up choosing the Social Democrats as a coalition partner, that could mean Marin could theoretically get a post — albeit not the prime minister’s job — in the next government.
Still, for now, a coalition with other conservatives appears to be the most likely outcome.
Finnish media touted the The Finns, which ran on an anti-immigration and anti-EU agenda, as the biggest winner of the election. The populists scored the best result of their history under the leadership of Riikka Purra, who took over the party in 2021.
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