Petteri Orpo’s comment caused the Basic Finns to startle – This is why Finland’s condition will not be fulfilled

Prime minister Petteri Orpo (kok) announced on Saturday at Ylen Ykkösaamu that they officially support a new European joint debt to finance common defense. Although Orpo stressed that it was his personal opinion, the government partner from the ranks of the basic Finns was immediately shunned.

“For this to work, it would require such a miracle that the countries of southern and western Europe would want to pay a net fee for the defense of eastern and northern Europe. I believe in such a thing almost as much as in Santa Claus”, the chairman of the Fundamental Finnish parliamentary group Jani Mäkelä wrote message service in X.

However, Orpo’s position hardly came as a surprise to basic Finns, because he changed his mind about joint debt already in November.

“It may be that we still have this discussion ahead of us, both at home and in Europe. This is about the security of Finland and Europe, and the money must be found for this,” he stated For Kauppalehti After the informal EU summit in Budapest.

The new collective debt was also discussed at the top meeting of several EU country leaders hosted by Orpo in Saariselka before Christmas. At that time, the issue was brought up by the Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni.

Meloni said another fact out loud in Saariselkä: “Finland and Sweden must take into account not only the eastern dimension but also the southern dimension.”

It directly means that the condition that the Prime Minister of Finland staked on the joint debt in Ykkösaamu will not be fulfilled. Namely, Orpo announced that common European debt financing must be used where Europe is being defended.

“It is being defended here in Finland, the Baltics and Eastern Europe,” he said.

Italy and probably also Greece, Spain and France have a different view. In particular, Meloni has been talking for a long time about the fact that, even within NATO, the focus must be on the southern front in addition to the eastern border.

“If we are on the front line defending (NATO’s) eastern allies, we cannot stay alone to defend NATO’s southern front. It is just as critical and we also face both global and hybrid threats there,” the Italian prime minister told reporters at the NATO summit in July.

The issue is particularly difficult for Italy’s sitting government, as Meloni’s second deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini is a well-known opponent of support for Ukraine and a pro-Russia Putinist. He will never swallow the fact that the EU would take on joint debt only to strengthen the eastern member states’ defense against Russia.

In Finland, it is also necessary to take into account the fact that the main concern of the EU’s southern member states is not Russia, but the situation in the Middle East. Italian Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto has often warned in strong words about the serious escalation of the geopolitical situation, especially in the EU countries of the Mediterranean region, due to the Middle East crisis.

At the same time, the new joint debt project is progressing in the EU in complete silence. Financial Times reported at the beginning of December that EU countries are considering building a 500 billion euro defense fund. According to the newspaper’s information, high-ranking European officials are establishing a joint defense financing instrument that would issue bonds. The financing model would also be open to certain non-EU countries, such as Britain and Norway.