Nordic countries should consider joint air control in far north, says Finnish parliament speaker

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland, Sweden and Norway should consider jointly organizing their air defense control in territories north of the Arctic Circle in the coming years, the speaker of the Finnish parliament said on Monday.

If applications from Finland and neighboring Sweden to join the Western military alliance NATO are successful, the Nordic countries could for the first time consider organizing part of their defense jointly with their common neighbor Norway , already a member of NATO.

“All three of us – Sweden, Norway and Finland – have relatively strong air forces and we need to control our borders and our airspace,” said Matti Vanhanen, discussing NATO and security policy with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere during an event hosted by Finnish President Sauli. Niinisto at his summer home in Naantali, Finland.

“It would be quite natural that in the coming years airspace control would be commonplace,” said Vanhanen, a former Finnish prime minister.

Finland and Sweden abandoned their traditional policies of neutrality following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February and are seeking to join NATO. Their candidacies, however, come up against opposition from Turkey, which accuses them of harboring terrorists.

Norway’s Stoere said he saw room for more Nordic cross-border cooperation in the far north – known as the Northern Cape – in areas beyond defence, such as energy and railroads.

“I’m trying to tell my government apparatus that many of the steps we’ve taken to develop our cross-border relations with Russia should simply shift focus and implement them with Sweden and Finland,” he said. he declared, giving the possibility of a railway from Finland. to the northern Norwegian ports of Tromso and Kirkenes, for example.

(Reporting by Anne Kauranen; editing by Angus MacSwan)