The National Coalition Party (NCP), at present polling as Finland's largest and tipped to win the forthcoming election, has advocated a permanent presence of NATO troops in the Nordic country.
“We must become a key player on the NATO map,” NCP parliamentary group chairman Kai Mykkänen said at a meeting in Lappeenranta, as quoted by national broadcaster Yle. He added that Finland “has the national will to have a NATO base and permanent troops in Finland”.
According to Mykkänen, the Nordic country could, for instance, establish a NATO command center or an Arctic center of excellence. According to him, the issue of establishing a NATO base in Finland has not been discussed actively enough, and the government and opposition parties need to redeem themselves as soon as possible.
NCP leader Petteri Orpo agreed that a NATO command center in Finland would be “worth pursuing”.
NATO troops have frequently held drills in Finland even before the country submitted its membership application in May. Most recently the wasp-class, amphibious assault ship, the USS Kearsarge conducted exercises with Finnish forces in the Baltic Sea.
As part of its military policy, the NCP supported raising defense expenditure above 2 percent of GDP, which is the present NATO target level for member states.
Mykkänen also suggested that the debate about only men joining the military had run its course and he supported female conscription.
“Every year it becomes more and more difficult to justify why the best and most willing Finns, regardless of sex, are not selected for service,” Mykkänen mused.
In doing so, Finland would join the ranks of Norway, which in 2015 became the first European nation to introduce conscription. Other countries which have conscription include Israel, North Korea, and Malaysia.
Last year, a cross-party parliamentary committee proposed extending military call-ups to women, but not conscription, which is only mandatory for Finnish males.
The liberal-conservative National Coalition Party is part of the “Big three” that has dominated Finnish national politics for decades, alongside the ruling Social Democrats and the Centre Party. It is currently polling as a front runner ahead of the general election to be held in April 2023.
Helsinki formally completed NATO accession talks last month, when alliance leaders agreed to invite the Nordic nation - together with its neighbor Sweden - into the bloc. The matter is now up for ratification by allied nations’ parliaments. Turkey threatened to postpone ratifying both Finland's and Sweden’s bids if Helsinki and Stockholm were to fail to sever cooperation with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and other organizations Ankara deems “terrorist”.
Earlier this summer, President Putin warned that if NATO infrastructure were deployed in the Nordic nations, Russia will respond in kind “and create the same threats in the territories from which they threaten us”.