Policy|According to a recent book, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson wondered about Niinistö’s and Marini’s different messages regarding NATO membership in March 2022.
Although in retrospect, it seemed that the top government led Finland to become a member of NATO, the president, with a joint effort Sauli Niinistön and Prime Minister Sgive Marin (sd) joint play was not always as seamless as it seemed from the outside.
This is what a recent Swedish book says Högt över havet – så övergav Sverige alliancesfriheten, (High above the sea – thus Sweden renounced its non-alignment). Svenska Dagbladet published by by Maggie Strömberg and by Torbjörn Nilsson excerpts from the book written on Saturday.
Finland and in terms of the progress of Sweden’s NATO process, the key event was the meeting between Sauli Niinistö and the US president Joe Biden meeting at the White House on March 4, 2022. During the discussion break, the presidents unexpectedly decided to call the Swedish Prime Minister For Magdalena Andersson.
After the phone conversation, Andersson had many open questions about what exactly Biden had said to Niinistö in the meeting. Therefore, the Swedish Prime Minister’s staff contacted the presidential office in Helsinki and arranged a meeting with Niinistö on Saturday, March 5, i.e. right after Niinistö returned from Washington.
“Then something surprising happened,” the book says. Prime Minister Sanna Marini’s staff was contacted and Andersson was presented with an official invitation to a meeting between the prime ministers. It was surprising that the prime ministers were proposed to meet even before Andersson and Niinistö met.
“Why was Marin so worried”, Andersson’s staff wondered.
President Sauli Niinistö met Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on March 5, 2022 in Helsinki. Defense ministers Peter Hultqvist and Antti Kaikkonen and Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who had already had lunch with Andersson before the meeting with the president, were also present at the meeting.
The book according to Marin had told Andersson at lunch that he hoped Swedes would understand the history of Finland and its effects on Finns. Finns knew what it was like to be attacked by Russia.
Marin presented the Swedes with Yle’s recent opinion poll, according to which for the first time the majority of Finns, 53 percent, supported NATO membership.
Magdalena Andersson was surprised how much weight Marin put on one opinion poll. According to the book, Andersson had never seen anything similar in an official meeting like this.
Marin told Andersson that in Finland only two of the eight parliamentary parties supported NATO membership.
“But things change quickly,” Marin said.
Marin stated that he had not yet decided his position on NATO membership. According to the Swedish guests, however, Marini’s positive stance on membership was clear as day. That’s how emphatically he spoke about NATO membership.
“It was the way Marin talked about membership—rather than what she said. It was completely new to us,” a Swedish source who was at Kesäranta’s lunch says in the book.
Marin’s after the meeting, Andersson went to see President Niinistö. Marin also participated in this meeting.
Swedes were used to the fact that Niinistö usually does not express things very straightforwardly and clearly. This time, however, the situation was different.
“Now we received an unusually clear message from Niinistö. It was that we should take it easy,” an anonymous source says in the book.
Niinistö, who calmed down, spoke at the meeting about the risks of NATO membership and the fact that there was a great uncertainty in power in general. How do the Russians feel about arms deliveries to Ukraine? Did Putin want to expand the conflict?
“Niinistö used the expression hold your horses“, a Swede says. So called for restraint regarding NATO membership.
On May 15, 2022, the President of the Republic Sauli Niinistö and the Prime Minister Sanna Marin announced that Finland will apply for NATO membership.
Niinistön the message to the Swedish Prime Minister was therefore very different from the one given by Prime Minister Sanna Marin earlier in the day. The guests also paid attention to the mutual relations between Marin and Niinistö.
“You could already see from their body language that they didn’t like each other,” the book says. According to the book, President Niinistö spoke to the prime minister in a condescending tone and “made it clear that Marin had no experience in foreign and security policy”.
“It was clear that they were not working in sync. As people, they are really different and their tone was very different,” characterized one member of the Swedish delegation.
A few months later, in May 2022, Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership at the same time.
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