Sweden more positive than Finland toward NATO Reaction Force

President Halonen and Prime Minister Reinfeldt meet in Stockholm; Lipponen warns against downplaying significance of NATO

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Sweden’s new government appears to be taking a more positive stance than Finland toward participation in the NATO Reaction Force (NRF). The issue came up on Friday when President Tarja Halonen met with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt in Stockholm.
      NATO recently offered non-member states, such as Sweden and Finland, which are part of the Partnership for Peace programme, the possibility to take part in operations of the NRF, a force of 19,000 soldiers that can be deployed at short notice in crisis areas around the world.
      Commenting on the initiative, President Halonen said that it is too early for Finland to take on very many tasks like that. In her view, Finland must now concentrate on working within the European Union. Finland has set up a joint battle group for crisis management operations, along with Germany and The Netherlands.
      Meanwhile, Speaker of Parliament Paavo Lipponen (SDP) has warned against ruling NATO membership out of Finland’s future options for security policy.
     
President Halonen feels that Finland should first see how the EU operation gets going. "We are members of the EU. We have cooperated with NATO in a number of operations. We have also led a NATO operation, and that has been successful."
      However, she added that she does not think that Finland should commit itself to being on call in various operations before seeing how things go in the organisation in which Finland is a member.
     
The Swedish Prime Minister, meanwhile, said that while no decisions had been made, he sees no reason to take a negative view. He noted that Swedish soldiers are involved in different types of missions, including some involving NATO. "It works well", Reinfeldt said on Friday.
      "We have initially said in Sweden that it could be interesting, but that we want to wait", Reinfeldt said.
      He also emphasised that Swedish membership in NATO is "not topical", and that there are a large number of projects underway which affect the resources of the Swedish military.
      Earlier in the month, Sweden’s Minister of Defence Mikael Odenberg said that Sweden would discuss NATO’s offer "in a positive spirit".
      Sweden’s small opposition parties, the Greens, and the Left Party, are taking an openly negative view of the initiative. The main opposition party, the Social Democrats, have not yet hammered out a stand on the matter.
     
Speaker of Parliament Paavo Lipponen said in a television interview programme on Saturday that he feels that Finland should, "in principle", be a member of all organisations comprised by democratic Western countries.
      He also warned against downplaying the significance of NATO in such a way as to rule out the NATO option might in the future.
      Lipponen added that possible NATO membership should be thoroughly investigated in Finland, and that such a move would require the support of the people as well as extensive common understanding.
      He called for a political assessment in the government’s next security and defence policy report.
     
Lipponen welcomed comments by Defence Minister Seppo Kääriäinen (Centre), who said in early November that Finland would have to either increase its military spending or join NATO.
      President Tarja Halonen has rejected the idea of joining NRF already before the matter has been discussed in the government. Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) has also emphasised Finnish participation in EU-based military cooperation.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finland not to join NATO Response Force (5.12.2006)
  Opposition leader welcomes NATO initiative, Prime Minister sceptical (30.11.2006)
  Finland to be invited into NATO rapid action force at Riga summit (29.11.2006)
  Minister Kääriäinen: Finland must spend more on defence, or join NATO (2.11.2006)
  Sweden and Finland pledge to keep each other informed of NATO plans (16.10.2006)
  Bush to propose expanded NATO partnership for Finland (22.11.2006)

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