What will change with Finland's entry into NATO

Finland, which becomes NATO's 31st member on Tuesday 4 April, has 19,000 military personnel and some 280,000 reservists. AP - Heikki Saukkomaa

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

The foreign ministers of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) are meeting on Tuesday 4 April at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels. On the agenda of their debates: the preparation of the Vilnius summit in July, where the allies are expected to decide on the acceleration of their defense spending. A major geopolitical change will thus be recorded in the face of Russia when Finland formally joins the Atlantic Alliance on the same day.

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It is this Tuesday morning that Turkey formally deposits its ratification of Finland's "protocol of accession" to NATO. The latter will then be able to submit its accession documents, thus becoming the 31st member of the Atlantic Alliance. This will be symbolized by a ceremony in Brussels at 15:30 local time (13:30 in universal time). In the Belgian capital, the Finnish flag, the blue Scandinavian cross on a white background, will be raised, explains our correspondent Pierre Benazet.

The symbol is largely that of confrontation with the Kremlin, because this accession puts an end to Finnish neutrality, adopted in 1944 vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. The invasion of Ukraine, Moscow's assertion of geostrategic power, had the opposite effect to that intended: Russia now shares 1,340 kilometers of new borders with a NATO country, Finland now covered by the mutual protection offered by Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

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Finland has never neglected its military capabilities, despite its neutrality observed over the past 79 years. It has, on a European scale, a substantial arsenal of some 1,500 artillery pieces, including a hundred Leopard 2 tanks. It has about fifty F/A 18 Hornet fighter jets and has placed an order for more than 60 F-35s. NATO will also be able to count on the country's 19,000 soldiers and some 280,000 reservists.

For the Baltic countries, which have only a short 65-kilometre land border with the allies to the south, this accession is a security assurance. They will now have an alliance country on their northern border, just across the Baltic Sea, says Juliette Gheerbrant of RFI's Europe service.

In the far north of the continent too, Finland within NATO is strengthening the defence of the Norway-Russia border, and more generally the weight of the transatlantic alliance in the Arctic region against the interests of Moscow but also Beijing. Concretely, Finland already had strategic agreements with its Baltic neighbors and with NATO, but from now on, Helsinki will also benefit from the mutual assistance of the allies in case of aggression, and their nuclear deterrent.

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In the same vein, the allies planned to discuss this Tuesday the increase in their long-term military spending, yet another geostrategic consequence of the invasion of Ukraine.

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• Finland
• Turkey
• NATO
• Russia