HS analysis|On Monday, the Parliament approved the extensive defense cooperation agreement between Finland and the United States. Behind the scenes, things like the power of the parliament and nuclear weapons were twisted, writes HS reporter Elina Kervinen.
Parliament accepted on Monday at the end of a long process, Finland and the United States’ broad defense cooperation agreement (DCA).
The agreement is significant in terms of weight, which is already evident from its key points.
DCA opens fifteen military areas in Finland to the United States.
US soldiers also get relatively seamless access to the country.
Its forces can transport and store their weapons and equipment in advance in Finland and guard the facilities intended for this, if this is deemed necessary in the future.
Interesting in the last meters of the processing in the parliament was how they wanted to frame the agreement.
Finland’s traditionally cherished consensus on issues of foreign and security policy held when the government’s proposal regarding the DCA did not even have to be voted on in the big hall.
It was still not painless.
Achieving consensus on the Foreign Affairs Committee’s report, which was the basis of the proceedings last week, required a significant struggle, according to HS’s information.
The agreement was finally pressed on Thursday in a meeting that lasted for hours.
The most painful The acceptance of the DCA was for the left-wing union, which was already known in advance.
Chairman of the parliamentary group Jussi Saramo has scolded several times in publicthat Finland gives up part of its sovereignty by agreement.
The Left Alliance was still inclined to support the committee’s report.
Even during the debate in the parliament hall on Monday, the group’s inner pain was visible when the MP Minja Koskela (left) submitted separate statements to the report, for example related to nuclear weapons. They were not accepted.
The Left Alliance Anna Kontula proposed the rejection of the draft laws concerning the agreement and that the agreement would not be accepted.
However, Kontula’s rejection motion did not receive support and therefore there was no need to go to the vote.
Left Alliance eventually backed the report in the foreign affairs committee after receiving sufficient records regarding the parliament’s influence in the later implementation of the agreement.
The question concerned, among other things, facilities that can be designated for the exclusive use of the United States according to the agreement. The Left Alliance reportedly wanted the parliament to have decision-making power whenever an entire building or area was involved.
At least it was important for the assembly that the report does not outline individual points of the agreement specifically for the parliament to be decidedeven if the right to information is otherwise protected.
The background is the idea that the agreement is intended to work even in crisis conditions, enabling quick action.
In the end, there was an entry in the report that emphasizes that “parliament’s opportunities for influence must be secured”, especially when it comes to “handing over facilities or areas or parts of them that are significant in terms of scope, location or purpose of use”.
According to the report, this can be implemented, for example, with a reporting procedure, depending on the significance of the change.
In addition in the committee, at least there was hand-wringing about accurate records related to nuclear weapons.
In the background, there has been a long-standing discussion about an extremely unlikely situation where nuclear weapons would be placed in Finland or they would have to be transported through Finland.
Related to this is a discussion of Finland’s nuclear energy law and possible changes in the future. The law currently prohibits the importation, manufacture, possession and detonation of nuclear explosives in Finland.
At least in the Sdp and the Left Alliance, it was considered important that the line of the law be recorded in the Foreign Affairs Committee’s DCA report. This was also done.
The passions around the question were visible in Monday’s hall debate, when the chairman of the foreign affairs committee Kimmo Kiljunen (sd) wanted to interpret that the Nordic countries have a “nuclear weapons ban” based on the countries’ DCA treaty framework.
“In a way, the North has become a nuclear-weapon-free zone within the framework of NATO with this treaty arrangement,” he said.
This got a nod from the vice-chairman of the committee from Sofia Vikman quick response.
“There is no nuclear weapons ban in the agreement, contrary to what the chairman of the committee claimed.”
The coalition has emphasized that Finland does not set national prior restrictions on its NATO membership.
Finland and the US DCA does not mention nuclear weapons, unlike the Norwegian and Danish treaties. In Sweden, the matter is referred to in the government’s proposal and in the Diet’s decision on it.
In Finland, the government’s proposal and the committee’s report refer to the Nuclear Energy Act that is now in force.
Kiljunen referred to this combination of records when talking about the “nuclear weapons ban”, which he clarified in the discussion.
As such, the significance of the report’s nuclear weapons registration is probably limited: nothing prevents Finland from changing the law, if there is a desire to do so at some point. In that case, the parliament would be involved in changing it.
Special In the end, the terminological argument was still going on both in the hall and apparently also in the committee about how to use the word deterrent can be used in connection with the DCA agreement.
The debate seemed like some kind of breath from the past: What words are appropriate to say in Russia’s neighbor?
In an English word deterrence for example, in the context of NATO, we refer to the deterrence that nuclear weapons and, for example, the troops stationed in NATO’s eastern member states form.
“
The debate seemed like some kind of breath from the past: What words are appropriate to say in Russia’s neighbor?
It was now a question of whether the DCA agreement is a deterrent and whether it strengthens NATO’s deterrent.
The left wing wanted to emphasize that it is from the retainerno deterrence.
“These have quite a lot of meaning, because deterrence is a threat factor. It is always a threat factor, arrest is not a threat”, said Sdp’s Kiljunen in the hall discussion on Monday.
He emphasized that it is specifically a defense agreement that is not against anyone.
Saramo of the Left Alliance also emphasized that Finland’s NATO membership or the DCA agreement does not change NATO’s deterrence or nuclear deterrence.
The coalition, on the other hand, had no problems with the word deterrent.
Outdoor- and in security policy, words are signals.
The discussion reflects how Finland has wanted to emphasize that the DCA agreement is not against anyone but for Finland’s security.
Regardless of the formulation, it should be quite clear that the opening of 15 military areas to the United States in the neighbor of warring Russia is significant. It is also a strong signal.
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