Thread by @minna_alander

Big news today in Finland & Sweden: Finnish parliamentarians informed their Swedish colleagues during a visit that Finland will start drafting the required laws for NATO accession, making it more likely that 🇫🇮 would become member without 🇸🇪 if 🇹🇷&🇭🇺 ratify separately

https://twitter.com/PaulTLevin/status/1625534236651397120

This comes after NATO GenSec Jens Stoltenberg said today that it’s not so important whether 🇫🇮&🇸🇪 enter the Alliance at the same time, but that they become members asap. This marks a change in tone

on.ft.com/3k0RS5h

However, 🇫🇮 parliament’s foreign affairs committee’s chairperson Jussi Halla-Aho said that there is no unanimous answer within the committee to the question how Finland would proceed in case it was ratified without Sweden
hs.fi/politiikka/art…

It isn’t quite the defcon level as portrayed in Swedish media. It was anyways going to be the most likely scenario in which 🇫🇮 would go ahead, if 🇫🇮 was ratified alone but without actively seeking to separate the processes

@eadamson91 & I explored this
atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atla…

This should in general hardly come as a surprise - in his typically cryptic way, 🇫🇮 President Niinistö already nudged the parliament to start preparing the necessary legislation in his New Year’s speech. And the Pres is the security policy influencer no 1

presidentti.fi/en/speeches/pr…

What 🇸🇪 parliament’s foreign affairs committee’s vice chair Morgan Johansson says here isn’t quite accurate - at least for 🇫🇮 the point of NATO membership is maximum deterrence, not developing bilateral defence coop with 🇸🇪 (which is very important too)

svd.se/a/Q79O08/sveri…

Finally, it feels pretty tactless to go on about this while Turkey is still grappling with the devastating consequences of the earthquake and more than 30k dead. This could also change Erdogan’s domestic situation, and possibly have an impact on the election schedule

Possibly the NATO issue will lose some of its relevance as a tool for Erdogan; whether it’ll lead to a quiet ratification I can’t assess. But both Erdogan & the rest of the country currently have other more pressing issues to deal with so further delay could be possible too.

To conclude: in Finland the consensus is that joint accession remains priority but esp with elections in April, 🇫🇮 wants to avoid any potential delay in the process when the new govt & parliament are being formed, should the pending ratifications come in later in the spring

Having followed the 🇫🇮🇸🇪 process closely, I have to say it has also revealed quite a notable lack of understanding of 🇫🇮 sec pol in 🇸🇪: that 🇸🇪 was so surprised by 🇫🇮 decision to join NATO last spring (“jävla finnar, nu måste vi kanske också gå med”)…
svd.se/a/Qy1gXx/sa-gi…

…and that until Jan this year, hardly anyone in Sweden seemed to have thought of the possibility of 🇫🇮 going ahead alone, despite an opinion poll from Nov already indicating that 52% of respondents said 🇫🇮 should not wait for 🇸🇪
mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/mtv-…

It’s great that the NATO process has brought 🇫🇮&🇸🇪 closer and fostered an even better mutual understanding, and apparently made Swedes think more positively about Finland.

I trust the bffs to handle this elegantly and without hard feelings. 🇫🇮🫶🇸🇪

(End)
finlandabroad.fi/web/swe/aktuel…