Caroline Baudry, edited by Yanis Darras
modified to
11:06 a.m., May 15, 2022
Finland is now on NATO’s doorstep. The government is organizing a conference this afternoon to formalize their application to join the transatlantic alliance. A candidacy viewed with suspicion by Moscow, which has decided to impose sanctions. For 24 hours, Russia has not delivered electricity to Finland.
After several weeks of reflection, Finland will formalize its candidacy for NATO membership. For the occasion, it is within the walls of the presidential palace, a yellow residence on the quays of the capital of Finland Helsinki, that the president and the prime minister will speak at 1 p.m. They will be followed by the foreign and defense ministers. The Finnish government will thus express to journalists from all over the world its desire to join the ranks of the military organization “without delay”.
An announcement that displeases its neighbor the Russian giant, which shares 1,300 kilometers of common border with the country of a thousand lakes. Yesterday afternoon, Vladimir Putin again warned his neighbor on the phone. This historic shift is a “mistake” according to the President of the Russian Federation, and now threatens Finland with “technico-military” reprisals.
An application possibly hindered
For more than 24 hours, Russia has stopped supplying electricity to Finland. These imports represented nearly 10% of the country’s consumption, offset however by the increase in Finnish production and by Swedish imports, specifies Reima Päivinen, vice-president of Fingrid, the operator of the Finnish network. Companies present in the territory are also preparing for a possible cyberattack.
Once formalized, the application will be examined by the 200 parliamentarians tomorrow, before a vote on Tuesday. Its neighbor, Sweden, should also quickly present its candidacy. The two Scandinavian countries will however have to convince Turkey, which is threatening to block the process of joining the two countries to NATO.