Uitbreiding NAVO met Baltische landen leidt tot neutraliteits-debat in Finland (en)

As NATO surveillance fighter jets from the Belgian air force landed in northern Lithuania on Monday afternoon to mark the three Baltic countries' membership of the Alliance, the debate in neighbouring Finland is heating up as to whether the country should retain its traditional neutrality.

The head of a parliamentary committee on foreign affairs from the Social Democrat party, Liisa Jaakonsaari, has proposed that Finland should drop its traditional policy of non-alignment since it is already part of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).

She also proposed that the word "non-alignment" be scrapped from a key foreign and security policy report, due to be handed over to the Finnish Parliament this autumn.

And her party, the Social Democrats, which governs as part of a coalition with the Centre Party of prime minister Matti Vanhanen, has recently issued a statement calling for the "possibility" to seek NATO membership.

But Mr Vanhanen has rejected the proposals.

Finland is a member of NATO's Partnership for Peace initiative and joined the EU in 1995 - however NATO membership is unpopular among the general public.

Terrorists do not differentiate

MP Jari Vilén of the Conservative Party said that in all real threat scenarios concerning Finland, such as terrorism, the country is irrevocably allied.

"The terrorists do not segregate EU member states based on whether or not they are NATO members or not; or if they consider themselves militarily allied or not", Mr Vilén argued in a speech in Kemi.

The Chairwoman of the opposition Left Alliance Suvi-Anne Siimes insisted that Finland is still militarily non-aligned.

"The EU is not a military alliance, and it is not turning into a military alliance under the new Constitution", she said, according to Helsingin Sanomat.

The three Baltic states Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and four other countries Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia formally joined NATO on Monday, bringing the number of the organisation's members from 19 to 26.