Presidential candidates clash over participation in NATO exercises

No candidates support participation in NRF forces

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Candidates in Sunday’s Presidential election clashed on Tuesday over whether or not Finland should take part in exercises of the NATO Response Force, or possibly even in actual NRF operations. At a televised debate held at the Sanoma House in the centre of Helsinki, there were questions over whether or not the government has actually discussed the matter, and if it even knows what it has decided.
      The most aggressive on the matter was National Coalition Party candidate Sauli Niinistö, who pressed Centre Party candidate Matti Vanhanen on whether or not Finland is to take part in such exercises.
      Niinistö said that there has been confusion over the issue, with Vanhanen saying one day that the government has not discussed the matter, and then, that the matter has been under discussion for more than ten years.
      After some confusion, Vanhanen said that certain concepts had been confused in recent debate. According to Vanhanen, the actual NRF exercises are for NATO’s own rapid response forces. In addition, there are rapid action exercises that meet NATO’s NRF standards, in which Finland does participate.
     
Vanhanen also assured Niinistö that he knows exactly what the government has discussed. The military exercise programme for Finnish soldiers was last on the government's agenda in December.
      Vanhanen denied that there had been anything secretive involved. Training rapid reaction forces to NATO standards is one of Finland’s goals in the Partnership for Peace programme. Vanhanen said that the government has taken a positive stand on the matter, and that Parliament has been kept informed.
     
Finland and the NATO countries agreed on new goals for partnership last spring, and the matter was also reported in the press.
      Finns, and other soldiers taking part in the rapid action forces of the European Union, are to undergo training in NATO exercises, because the EU does not organise its own manoeuvres. This came out in the government’s defence policy report, which was issued in the autumn of 2004.
      None of the candidates in the debate wanted Finland to take part in actual military operations of NRF.
      The Social Democratic Party candidate, President Tarja Halonen, said that Finland should not "hoard new tasks". She feels that now is the time to build the EU’s rapid response forces.
      Henrik Lax of the Swedish People’s Party submitted that it is not even possible for a country that is not a member of NATO to join the NRF forces.
     
A survey made public during the debate revealed that Sauli Niinistö was the only one of the eight candidates, whose campaign had brought a significant amount of negative feedback.
      The study was commissioned by the commercial television network Nelonen, which also televised Tuesday's debate. The survey showed that 18 percent of voters feel that Niinistö’s "Workers’ President" slogan had changed their view of Niinistö in a more negative direction.
      Niinistö insisted that the theme of the campaign is not a failure: the issue involved was his past performance as Minister of Finance. "All of the problems are Niinistö’s fault", he said.
      The survey found that independent candidate Arto Lahti was perceived as the most annoying, with 42 percent of respondents saying they could not even consider voting for him.
      At the other end of the scale is Vanhanen: only 16 percent felt that they could not vote for him under any circumstances.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  HS Gallup: Second round could be in prospect in Presidential Elections (10.1.2006)

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