HELSINKI: Finland’s neutrality is likely to come under increasing strain as a result of the European Union’s adoption of a landmark security pact.

The new European Security Strategy is an unprecedented attempt to enable the Union to act in a coordinated way on a global level, but the population here has no enthusiasm for greater defence cooperation.

However, an important part of the political elite is in favour of stepping up such cooperation with the rest of the EU, even if this means bringing the country close to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Indeed, it was at a summit conference here in 1999 that the European Union adopted the so-called Helsinki Headline Goal to be capable by this year of deploying a European force of up to 60,000 men with its own command structure within 60 days.

Non-alignment is solidly entrenched in Finland. It enabled the country to straddle the fence between the Soviet Union and the West, and most Finns see no good reason for abandoning it.

In addition, the government has changed since the 1999 summit, bringing into power with the Social Democrats the Agrarian Center Party, which is a strong defender of non-alignment, in place of the NATO-friendly Conservative National Coalition Party.

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said recently that the EU’s intensifying cooperation on defence and security would not nullify Finland’s commitment to military non-alliance.

“Finland will be non-allied as long as we wish such a policy to continue,” he asserted.

In the face of such views, former Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, one of the architects of the Helsinki Headline Goal, is now campaigning from opposition in favor of greater European defence cooperation.

“When Lipponen was prime minister, there appeared to be a clear plan to prepare Finland for NATO membership,” said Tomas Ries, a security analyst with the Finnish Defence Academy.

Lipponen has been urging the government to sign up to the security guarantees contained in the beleaguered European Constitution. He warned that Finland would be “sidelined” from European integration if it did not.

Instead, Finland has joined with other EU neutrals, Austria, Ireland and Sweden, in negotiating an opt-out from any mutual security obligations. Nevertheless defence analyst Christer Pursiainen said, “one can question if there is anything left of non-aligned status.”

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the country’s leaders abandoned the sacred cow of strict cold war neutrality, and drew close to Western Europe through membership in the European Community.

Ironically, one of the chief arguments for joining the community was the fact that it provided an implicit defence guarantee. Tuomioja has repeatedly argued that Finland does not need NATO on the grounds that the EU offers similar guarantees.

A government report, started under Lipponen, is expected to conclude that Finland has nothing to lose by joining NATO.

Experts agree that if Finland does participate in the EU’s developing military plans, it would indirectly become tied to NATO anyway, since the EU would have to rely on NATO resources.

The argument about non-alignment has acquired a degree of urgency as a result of the US-led invasion of Iraq, which has spurred the debate about defence cooperation at a European level.—AFP