VZCZCXRO8856
RR RUEHAG RUEHDF RUEHIK RUEHLZ RUEHROV
DE RUEHHE #1248/01 3531312
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 191312Z DEC 06
FM AMEMBASSY HELSINKI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2840
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE
RUEHNY/AMEMBASSY OSLO 4661
RUEHRK/AMEMBASSY REYKJAVIK 0268
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 0929

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HELSINKI 001248 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV MOPS MARR EUN RU FI
SUBJECT: FINLAND:  NATO DEBATE HEATS UP 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: The March 2007 parliamentary election 
campaign is about to kick off and NATO is emerging as a key 
theme, just as it did in the January 2006 presidential 
elections -- and despite the efforts of several prominent 
politicians to muzzle public debate on this sensitive topic. 
This cable offers a snapshot of the current NATO debate in 
Finland, and subsequent reporting will examine the impact of 
NATO and security issues on both the elections and the new 
government that emerges.  End Summary 
 
Background: Is NATO Still the Political Kiss of Death? 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
¶2. (SBU) Finland's general Parliamentary elections are four 
months away (March 2007).  As the election looms closer, the 
question of whether Finland should accede to NATO is 
generating renewed public interest and debate.  President 
Tarja Halonen was re-elected in January by a surprisingly 
thin 
margin over her Conservative Party challenger, Sauli Niinsto. 
 
Security policy -- and especially the NATO issue -- played a 
significant role in the presidential campaign.  Halonen, a 
Social Democrat (SDP), had long opposed joining NATO and had 
expressed similar reservations about European Security and 
Defense Policy (ESDP) planning.  (At one point, she suggested 
that no EU military operations could be legitimate or 
justified in the absence of UN authorization, but 
subsequently 
moderated that stance.)  Niinsto stopped short of advocating 
outright NATO accession, but his positive comments about 
possible future membership and his support for greater 
regional and international engagement by Finland were widely 
interpreted as de facto support for accession sooner rather 
than later. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Pundits in Finland have long predicted that public 
support for NATO membership would be the kiss of death for 
any 
Finnish politician, and that debate rages on as the 
Parliamentary contests approach.  With Niinisto almost having 
pulled off an upset, many now argue that his outspoken stance 
on security policy may have been the issue that separated him 
from Halonen and others and captured the imagination of 
voters.  Those same voices hold that although Halonen won, 
her 
poorer than expected showing resulted in part from a 
perception that her idealism was coloring her foreign policy 
judgment too much and leading to unrealistic "ivory tower" 
policies that risked isolating Finland from the European 
mainstream.  However, others -- including leading 
Conservative 
Party strategists -- tell us that NATO and security policies 
actually were the kiss of death for Niinisto.  In their 
version, had he not been so forward leaning in these areas, 
he 
would have picked up the additional 2.5 percentage points he 
needed and toppled Halonen.  In particular, Conservatives now 
say, Finnish Center Party voters, who favored many of 
Niinisto's other arguments, remained staunchly opposed to 
NATO 
membership and reacted to Niinisto's NATO arguments either by 
voting for Halonen or by staying home.  Opinion polls still 
show a large majority of Finns opposed to NATO membership, 
but 
opposition remains especially high among the largely rural 
voters who make up the vast majority of the Center Party's 
base.  One final factor, according to both our Center and 
Conservative Party contacts, was the overwhelming and still 
passionate opposition to the US invasion of Iraq.  Although 
polls indicated that most Finns believed NATO membership 
should remain a viable option, and that Finland would 
inevitably accede at some point, they still link NATO to the 
US, and the war remains a factor in voters' calculations. 
 
The Press Kicks Off This Season's Debate 
---------------------------------------- 
¶4. (SBU) Campaign season for the March 2007 contests does not 
even begin until January 1, but Finland's press corps kicked 
things off in October when Finland's two largest newspapers 
-- 
the Helsingin Sanomat (Helsinki) and Aamulehti (Tampere) -- 
ran their first-ever editorials officially advocating NATO 
accession for Finland.  The two big dailies were followed 
quickly by several smaller publications.  The newspapers' 
argument for accession was based on the fact that Finland is 
an active participant in NATO operations in Afghanistan, the 
Balkans, and elsewhere but that regardless of what shape or 
form an enhanced NATO partnership might take after the Riga 
Summit, lack of full membership would relegate Finland to 
continued second-class citizen status -- without the role in 
 
HELSINKI 00001248  002 OF 003 
 
 
decision-making, operational planning, and intelligence- 
sharing that the country desires.  A secondary theme that was 
addressed obliquely was renewed concern over Russia.  Finnish 
politicians and journalists alike are cautious when alluding 
to any possible threat from the Russian bear, and concerns 
about Russian backsliding on human rights and democracy are 
not the driving force behind the current debate; however, a 
level of concern about recent trends in Moscow is always a 
hidden subtext in any Finnish debate on security policy. 
 
Lipponen and Kaariainen Square Off 
---------------------------------- 
¶5. (SBU) Hard on the heels of the editorial staffs, two of 
Finland's most prominent politicians -- one historically pro- 
NATO, the other a staunch opponent -- weighed in publicly. 
Social Democratic (SDP) Speaker of Parliament Paavo Lipponen, 
the longtime advocate, said that Finland would be hard 
pressed 
to defend itself in the future without help from NATO. 
However, Lipponen also knows that NATO is not a winning issue 
for his Social Democratic party, largely because its other 
heavy hitters -- namely President Halonen and Foreign 
Minister 
Erkki Tuomioja -- strongly oppose Finland's joining NATO. 
For 
that reason, while holding true to his convictions, Lipponen 
also tried to pre-empt a discussion of NATO during this 
campaign, suggesting that the real debate should wait until 
after the 2007 elections.  Then, possibly, a more NATO- 
friendly Parliament might be seated, and leading NATO 
detractors like Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja (SDP) and 
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (who is constrained by his 
Center Party constituency) might be removed to less powerful 
roles. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Lipponen's remarks were followed by those of Defense 
Minister Seppo Kaariainen (Center Party), who told 
journalists 
that by 2020, Finland would be unable to maintain its current 
system of territorial defense without large increases in 
shrinking defense budgets or NATO membership.  Kaariainen's 
comments were initially noteworthy, because he has never 
favored NATO accession and generally shied away from entering 
the public fray.  They also prompted immediate attacks.  FM 
Tuomioja blasted the DefMin for "threatening" the GoF with 
the 
inevitability of NATO membership.  Although Tuomioja didn't 
use the word "blackmail," the gist of his remarks was that 
Kaariainen was indeed blackmailing the government for greater 
defense expenditures by presenting NATO as the only option in 
the absence of bigger budgets for the military.  The FM said 
that joining NATO was a political issue, not an economic one; 
and could not be made on the basis of budgetary 
considerations 
alone.  President Halonen predictably seconded Tuomioja's 
position saying there was no need for Finland to join NATO, 
no 
need for further debate at the present time, and no plans for 
the GoF to revisit the issue in the near future.  PM Matti 
Vanhanen (who is a committed trans-Atlanticist but knows he 
stands to gain nothing from his own base by favoring NATO 
membership) initially stayed clear of the public sparring, 
but 
later showed solidarity with the FM and President, declaring 
that NATO issues should not be discussed during the campaign. 
 
Lesser political luminaries such as former communist Jaako 
Lakso, an outspoken member of Parliament from the Left 
Alliance, also added their voices to those decrying 
Kaariainen's assessment. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Kaariainen and Lipponen did not respond publicly to 
any of the commotion; but sources from across the political 
spectrum now tell us that Kaariainen's gambit, in particular, 
was never intended as a show of support for Finland's NATO 
accession.  Instead, they said, it was a clever means of 
allowing others such as Halonen and Tuomioja to publicly shut 
down the NATO debate.  Liisa Jaakonsaari, the SDP chair of 
Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee (and, like Lipponen, a 
strong supporter of NATO membership, was unusually harsh in 
her public criticism of the GoF's position -- especially that 
of Halonen -- and she was furious with Kaariainen. 
Jaakonsaari lamented in particularly the fact that 
Kaariainen's response seemed designed to allow Halonen and 
others to cut off all debate on the subject.  As another MP 
put it, Kaariainen "certainly hasn't changed his tune on 
NATO, 
he just wants a bigger defense budget."  Max Jakobson, 
Finland's most respected ex-diplomat and foreign policy "grey 
eminence," also spoke out against the government's negative 
 
HELSINKI 00001248  003 OF 003 
 
 
assessment and attempt to close down the dialogue.  The 
career 
minister said that it was unfortunate the GoF was trying to 
"close the door" on NATO membership for the foreseeable 
future 
and implied that some NATO membership opponents were afraid 
of 
an open debate about accession. 
 
Even the Bear Growls 
-------------------- 
¶8. (SBU) Not to be left out, Russian officials took advantage 
of the opportunity to register their interest.  Russia's 
ambassador to Finland said that Moscow was "satisfied" with 
what he described as "Finland's clearly stated policy" to not 
apply for membership in the near future.  The visiting Chief 
of the Russian General Staff went somewhat further; speaking 
at a Helsinki press conference alongside his Finnish 
counterpart, the general opined that Finland should consider 
"the consequences of joining the alliance" on the Finnish- 
Russian bilateral relationship.  He referred to the Baltic 
states as having been turned into "worrying gray areas" by 
their decision to join NATO. 
 
Comment 
------- 
¶9. (SBU) If nothing else, the NATO and security policy debate 
promises to be a major theme in the upcoming parliamentary 
campaign, despite the efforts of several senior politicians 
to 
muzzle it.  We will follow it closely and, on the public 
diplomacy side, continue to do our part to dispel rumors, 
correct misimpressions and simply offer the facts regarding 
the US position.  Subsequent reporting will examine how the 
campaign and the election results will impact the Finnish 
NATO 
debate going forward. 
WARE