Parliament fails to snare Foreign Minister Stubb over NATO comments

Opposition praises government and president on handling of Georgian crisis

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The European Union has to concentrate its stabilising energies on the Caucasus. A shared foreign policy stand is also really and truly needed.
      Such was the Finnish government’s message to the opposition on Wednesday, as Parliament held its current topics discussion on the war in Georgia and the entire Caucasus crisis.
     
The opposition praised the government and the president for their quick reacting in managing the crisis, in which Finland has been quite prominently involved because of its current chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
      Some of the MPs clearly disagreed on the President’s actions and wished for more information on them.
      The political left had prepared to apply pressure on Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb (Nat. Coalition Party) because of his speech at a gathering of Finnish ambassadors and heads of mission in Helsinki a couple of weeks ago, in which Stubb said that Finland should consider the possibility of NATO membership. Stubb also said that the decision-making time is not at hand.
     
The opposition had interpreted that Stubb is advocating Finland’s immediate joining of the NATO alliance.
      MP Esko-Juhani Tennilä (Left Alliance) argued that Stubb wants to externalise Finland’s relationship with Russia to be dealt with through NATO and thereby through the United States.
      Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) pointed out that it is quite customary to deliver argumentative and even polemical speeches at the ambassadors’ gathering, in order that the diplomats would be aware of the tone of current discussions held in Finland.
      Stubb, in turn, re-read excerpts from his speech proving to Parliament that he had not suggested that Finland was in need of immediate NATO membership because of the Caucasus events.
      Stubb insisted that he shared Social Democrat MP and former Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja’s view on the need for NATO membership.
      “We cannot draw the conclusion from the crisis in Georgia that now the door to NATO membership has been opened. That would be silly. We cannot close it either”, Stubb said.
      To Tennilä, Stubb replied that the bilateral relationship with Russia will never be given up, even if Finland were to join NATO.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Stubb NATO comments raise questions (2.9.2008)
  COMMENTARY: Three plates, three different opinions (2.9.2008)
  Vanhanen and Stubb criticise Russian military action in Georgia (26.8.2008)

Links:
  Transcript of Foreign Minister Stubb´s speech to heads of Finnish missions, 25th August 2008

Helsingin Sanomat