Finland Times

 

The assessment of the effects of Finland's possible NATO membership was submitted to Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini on Friday. Photo – Lehtikuva.

An assessment report released on Friday said that Russia’s reaction to Finland’s possible NATO membership application could be severe or even harsh. 

 

The assessment of the effects of Finland's possible NATO membership was submitted to Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini in the afternoon, which, however, said that the accu-rate reactions are difficult to predict.

 

The assessment is an autonomous report on the effects of Finland's possible NATO member-ship and it was compiled by an independent international group of assessors, said an official press release.

 

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has not provided any guidance, or not responsible for the content or conclusions of the report.

 

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä does not believe that there will be pressure from Rus-sia on a report about Finland´s NATO membership application.

 

Prime Minister Juha Sipilä spoke on the assessment report and Russia´s possible reaction on Finland´s NATO membership on Friday. Photo – Lehtikuva.

When asked how prepared Finland is for any pressure from Russia, the PM replied, “I do not believe there will be any pressure from Russia. This is the time to thoroughly and honestly assess what the reaction from Russia might be, if Finland or Sweden join NATO.”

 

Earlier, the government in January appointed a group of assessors and its members were Am-bassador Mats Bergquist (Sweden), François Heisbourg, Chairman of the International Insti-tute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) (France), Ambassador René Nyberg (Finland) and Teija Tiilikainen, Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (Finland).

 

The assessment will be available as reference material for the government when it finalises the report on Finnish Foreign and Security Policy. 

 

The report will be submitted to Parliament in its spring session.