Prime Minister Katainen reacts to Defence Minister Wallin’s comments on NATO

PM on working visit to Olympic city Sochi

Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen

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Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen (Nat. Coalition Party) reacted on Wednesday to comments by Minister of Defence Stefan Wallin (Swed. People’s Party), who said earlier that cuts in defence spending are one argument for joining NATO.
      “There is room in Finland for talk on security policy. There’s no point in overreacting”, Katainen said in the Russian city of Sochi, where he was on a working visit.
     
Wallin made his comments to the newspaper Salon Seudun Sanomat and later on Tuesday to the Finnish News Agency STT.
      “Every bigger cost cut that is made in the defence budget from now on, adds to the arguments in favour of Finland becoming militarily allied”, Wallin said on Wednesday in an interview with the MTV3 television network.
      The Defence Minister pointed out that the government programme states that Finland is keeping open the possibility to apply for membership in NATO, but that joining the alliance requires the support of the people.
     
Katainen said that a decision to become allied would be made purely on the basis of political and security policy consideration.
      “We have clear policy lines in the government programme that we are not preparing military alignment in this electoral term.”
     
Also reacting to Wallin’s comments was opposition Centre Party MP Seppo Kääriäinen, who is also the deputy chairman of the Parliament’s defence committee.
      As Kääriäinen sees it, joining NATO would actually increase the Finnish defence budget, and would put pressure on Finland to become involved in international conflicts and combat missions.
      “It would be a new step in our security policy. We must not take it”, Kääriäinen said to the Centre Party newspaper Suomenmaa.
     
On Wednesday Katainen visited the construction site of the Winter Olympics of 2014, which will be held in Sochi.
      Katainen visited the construction site of the Olympic park on the shore of the Black Sea, where arenas will be set up for indoor events such as ice hockey and figure skating.
      “I offered them Finnish know-how”, he said after meeting with Sergei Gaplikov, CEO of the state-owned company Olimpstroi, which is overseeing the construction work for the Olympic project.
      Finnish contractors have complained that there have been few construction projects available to them.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finland will not move toward NATO membership in current Parliamentary term (17.6.2011)
  Mission Impossible: Finland´s 15-year standoff over NATO (8.3.2011)

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