Finland to decide on Nato membership ‘within weeks’

HELSINKI: Rattled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland’s prime minister said on Wednesday the Nordic nation would decide whether to apply for Nato membership "within weeks", despite the risk of infuriating Moscow.

Helsinki’s parliament will next week open a debate about joining the Western alliance after the Ukraine war sparked a dramatic U-turn in public and political opinion in Finland and neighbouring Sweden over long-held policies of military non-alignment.

Attempting to join Nato would almost certainly be seen as a provocation by Moscow, for whom Nato’s expansion on its borders has been a prime security grievance.

But Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Finland would now decide quickly on whether to apply for membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. "I think it will happen quite fast. Within weeks, not within months," Marin told a Stockholm press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson.

Sweden is also discussing Nato membership following Russia’s February 24 invasion. A Finnish government-commissioned report released on Wednesday examined the "fundamentally changed" security environment, according to the foreign ministry, and will make its way through parliament.

The report did not make recommendations but stressed, as did Marin in her speech, that without Nato membership Finland enjoys no security guarantees, despite being a partner to the alliance.

"There is no other way to have security guarantees than under Nato’s deterrence and common defence as guaranteed by Nato’s Article 5," Marin said, referring to an attack on one member being considered an attack on all.

The "deterrent effect" on Finland’s defence would also be "considerably greater" inside the alliance, the report noted while adding it also carried obligations for Finland to assist other members.

An opening parliamentary debate on membership is set for next Wednesday. Former prime minister and long-time Nato advocate Alexander Stubb said he believes a membership application is "a foregone conclusion".

Finland has a long history with Russia. In 1917 it declared independence after 150 years of Russian rule. During World War II, its vastly outnumbered army fought off a Soviet invasion, before a peace deal saw it cede several border areas to Moscow.