Progress in Finland’s NATO membership process: Finland’s delegation, led by Foreign Minister Haavisto, to hold accession talks with NATO in Brussels

Before the formal signing, Finland and NATO will hold accession talks on Finland’s NATO membership on 4 July. Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will head Finland’s delegation, and Minister of Defence Antti Kaikkonen will act as vice-chair.

The accession talks will cover five areas: political issues (including counter-terrorism policies), defence and military issues, legal issues, resource issues and information security issues.

The obligations and commitments of NATO membership will be discussed topic by topic. In addition, Finland will reaffirm its commitment to the content of the North Atlantic Treaty based on questions from the NATO Secretariat.

The Finnish delegation was appointed by the President of the Republic on 17 May and has members from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence, the Defence Command of the Defence Forces, the Ministry of Finance and the Mission of Finland to NATO. In addition, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs has appointed the delegation’s experts.

Inquiries:

Joel Linnainmäki, Special Adviser to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, tel. +358 295 350 466

Minna Laajava, Director, Unit for Security Policy and Crisis Management, tel. +358 295 350 128

The email addresses of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs are in the format firstname.lastname@formin.fi