One of Finland’s largest opposition parties, the Basic Finns, said it supported Finland’s application to NATO.
Party chairman Riikka Purra said the party council voted 61-3 in favor of membership. He spoke at a press conference in Helsinki on Saturday afternoon, which began more than an hour later than originally planned.
The second largest opposition party, the Coalition Party, has been demanding NATO membership since the 1990s.
On Friday night, a smaller opposition party, the center-right Christian Democrats, expressed support for NATO membership. The party council supported the decision by an overwhelming majority. At the Extraordinary Remote Meeting, 43 of the 50 members of the Board supported the application. Six members voted against and one abstained.
Another small opposition party, Movement Now, is also in favor of membership. These four opposition parties have a total of 82 seats in the 200-seat parliament.
Bite: Russian fuel is linked to security policy
"The security situation in Finland has deteriorated as a result of Russia’s actions. Minor errors or accidents can exacerbate the situation," Bite said earlier in the afternoon.
Purra said at the time that the party’s government and its parliamentary group, as well as almost all of its MPs, were in favor of NATO membership. A 38-member parliamentary delegation backed the application in March, but said MPs would be given a free hand to vote their conscience.
"The NATO process under way in Parliament is progressing rapidly," he pointed out. The legislature is expected to vote on the NATO application this month.
Purra also comments on Finland’s security of supply. According to him, the abandonment of fossil fuels from Russia is a profitable goal of security policy.
At the same time, he criticized the governmentโs climate policy and efforts to abandon peat production and coal-fired power plants. According to Purra, these must be kept in reserve to ensure the security of supply of the land.
"Carbon neutrality and other target timetables should be moved, at least temporarily, to guidelines or footnotes," he claimed.
Source: The Nordic Page