Left Alliance leader Paavo Arhinmäki accused the government of drawing up an agreement allowing closer cooperation with Nato ’in the dark’. The former culture minister said on Wednesday that he was surprised to learn of the deal.
Ahrinmäki claimed that the agreement – which would allow Finland to receive military aid in the event of a crisis – was not openly discussed once in government during the time that he was a minister.
The Left Alliance quit the government at the end of March as a result of disagreements over where cuts and tax rises should be made as part of the austerity savings programme. At the time Arhinmäki was Minister for Culture, as well as a member of the Foreign and Security Parliamentary Committee.
”The deal was drawn up in secret,” Arhinmäki told Yle on Wednesday. ”Parliament was not informed of it, and nor was government, during the time that I was in the cabinet,” he said.
Arhinmäki claimed that the government programme – a plan of action drawn up at the start of this government’s administration – includes an undertaking not to seek Nato membership nor to pave the way towards joining the military alliance.
The programme, submitted to parliament on 22 June 2011, does state that Finland will not prepare an application to join Nato during its term of office, but it also says that ”Finland will evaluate a possible NATO membership on the basis of its own national security and defence policy interests.”
Arhinmäki called for more precise information on the Nato deal to be made public. ”It’s not clear whether this agreement is a partnership agreement, in which case it’s another step towards closer cooperation with Nato,” he said. ”Such a step is not necessary at this time,” he claimed.
The chair of parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Pertti Salolainen, also voiced condemnation of the agreement, saying parliament had been kept in the dark about its preparation.