Finland is now officially the thirty-first member of NATO. Less than a year after you applied for admission. "Today is a historic day" for the Alliance, assured the organization's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg.
Finland has already hand-delivered the entry document into the organization, after the go-ahead recently given by Turkey and Hungary. With a ceremony in which the country's flag will be raised for the first time at the organization's headquarters in Brussels, which will be followed by a meeting of foreign ministers. With the receipt of this document, we can declare that Finland is now the 31st member of NATO”, declared US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“On this day, in 1949, the founding treaty of NATO, the Washington Treaty, was signed. It is hard to imagine a better way to celebrate our anniversary than by welcoming Finland as a full member of the Alliance," Stoltenberg said. The Secretary General has also pointed out that the historic step taken by Finland is the "direct result" of the war "of President Putin against Ukraine".
With the entry of the Nordic country, the Alliance adds 1,340 kilometers of border with Russia, more than double that at present. The invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago sparked an unprecedented change in Finnish politics in the historically neutral country with a troubled past with its Russian neighbor.
A past to which Stoltenberg has also made reference. "Finland has a history that speaks of the brutality that a war can inflict on the country", recalled the Norwegian politician, when comparing the situation that Ukraine is currently experiencing with the one that Finland experienced with the Winter War, the attempted invasion by part of the Soviet Union in 1939.
However, despite the large border that Finland incorporates, at the moment there is no study of incorporating troops into Finnish territory immediately. "There will be no NATO troops in Finland without the consent of Finland," Stoltenberg said. “What we have in many countries is exercises, air and naval presence, but we don't have a permanent presence. And it has not been an issue so far in our discussions with Finland,” he added.
Finnish Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen said in this regard that the country has yet to decide whether to request the deployment of NATO troops on its territory. "Now it is about full membership and what role we will have in the future is the next issue we have to discuss," he explained.
NATO currently has battalions deployed on the eastern flank. Since 2017, they have been installed in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland and last year, after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, they spread to Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
In any case, Stoltenberg recalled that now "the most important thing" is that Finland "has an armored security guarantee." "Article 5, our 'one for all and all for one' collective defense clause, will apply to Finland from today," he noted.
Contrary to what was initially expected, Finland will enter NATO without Sweden, the country with which it requested membership. However, the latter still does not have the definitive endorsement of either Turkey or Hungary. Although Stoltenberg expressed his confidence that he will soon be able to become a member and that, in any case, being a country "invited" to join the alliance, he is in "a better position" than before, which also allows him to participate in the structures military and civilian meetings and organization.
