"Non-allied" has become an empty and unnecessary phrase

EDITORIAL

print this

Finland is no longer in any real sense a non-allied country, nor is it militarily non-allied. The claim to the contrary stands in not-so-splendid isolation in the government’s recent report on security and defence policy, without any separate justifications or explanations of what the concept contains. A good part of the remainder of the text in the report is directly at odds with the assertion.
      The French Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie hit the nail smartly on the head in an interview with Helsingin Sanomat on September 26th, when she answered the question of how to square the relationship between EU defence cooperation and non-allied status: "Forgive me, but I don’t think non-allied means anything any longer."
     
The lengthy list of the goals and obligations that Finland has subscribed to as an EU member and which have been written into the government’s report only serves to reinforce the minister’s view.
      The core issue is not whether the European Union should be characterised as a military alliance - the report says quite concisely that it should not be. The core issue is the ever stronger military dimension to EU cooperation and also a sense of solidarity and mutual commitment that is no longer ultimately so very far from the obligations of the famous 5th Article of the NATO Charter.
     
According to the report, Finland "participates fully in developing and implementing the (EU’s) common security and defence policy".
      It supports the building of close cooperation with NATO and regards it as important that "Finnish civilian or military personnel (be despatched) to NATO headquarters and commands to positions considered of key importance to Finland, and for training".
      Within the EU, Finland "is preparing to participate in the rapid response forces being developed by the Union" and will "actively contribute to the shaping of permanent structured cooperation which is aimed at promoting the Union’s military capability".
      This latter term points towards the EU’s most ambitious project of developing a kind of hard core of the member states with the greatest military capability.
     
Finland is committing herself already to the so-called "Solidarity Clause" of Article I-43 of the EU’s Constitutional Treaty, which prescribes assistance - including military assistance - to a member state that is "the object of a terrorist attack or the victim of a natural or manmade disaster".
      Finland also supports the Article in the Treaty which contains an obligation to provide assistance in the case of attack, and the report notes that this obligation "will considerably reinforce the Union’s solidarity", and elsewhere that this strengthening of the Union’s external capabilities is also in Finland’s own interest.
     
It most probably is. At this juncture in the report, however, there is no explanation offered for why - at the end of last year - Finland put in so much effort to blur the content of the Article in question.
      As may be recalled, a sentence was included to the effect that the Article would not "prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States".
      This attempt to adhere simultaneously to a policy of commitment and the lack of it was already no better than a nuisance then. In the light of the new report, its meaninglessness is plain to see.
     
Finland’s foreign policy leadership still appears to be suffering from some kind of fear of its own courage. It draws practically all the salient conclusions from EU membership and from the changed circumstances, with the exception of the two most obvious ones.
      "Non-allied" no longer has any content, and so the time has arrived to abandon the concept. Secondly, now that we have already approved within the European Union far-reaching military cooperation and firmer contacts with NATO, a Finnish application to become a NATO member at some later date would be a short and natural step, devoid of any great measure of drama.
      Who is going to wind up the alarm-clocks in the Presidential residence of Mäntyniemi or at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? Who will help to ensure that the image of security policy held by the public, too, can be brought up to date and up to speed?
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 29.9.2004
     
     
Note: Quotations from the Report on Security and Defence Policy are taken from the English translation linked below.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish military non-alignment no longer self-evident issue (29.9.2004)

Links:
  Office of the Prime Minister: Finnish Security and Defence Policy 2004 (.pdf file)

Helsingin Sanomat