On Wednesday May 18, a little over a week ago, Finland sent its application to join NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A historic decision for this country which was until now neutral and which was very attached to this neutrality. And it is President Sauli Niiniströ, who has led the Republic of Finland since 2012, who will go down in history as the one who made this shift.
He was born in Salo, a small town in southwestern Finland less than a hundred kilometers from the capital Helsinki. Sauli Niinistö comes from a rather humble background. He is the youngest of four siblings and it was in his hometown that he began a political career in 1977 after opening his law firm there.
Member of the National Diet, the Finnish Parliament, since 1987, Sauli Niinistö has always been affiliated with the National Coalition Party, a conservative and liberal formation, details Louis Clerc, professor of contemporary history at the University of Turku in Finland. ” He is a politician who comes from the conservative right party, the Kokoomus, “the meeting”. He was a member of Parliament for a long time, then he was elected President of Parliament. In his positions in Parliament, Sauli Niinistö was rather in the conservative camp in terms of value in particular. For example, he spoke out against same-sex marriage. »
An open-minded curator
A conservatism that the future Head of State was able to put aside, specifies Louis Clerc: “ Once he became president, he managed to present himself beyond his party, as a representative of the Finnish population at large. He is an extremely experienced politician who has a long career behind him, who therefore comes from this fairly conservative background, but who at the same time has known how to place himself above party quarrels. »
Sauli Niiniströ is a political animal, even Maurice Carrez believes. ” He likes to show off », Specifies this history professor at Sciences Po Strasbourg and a great specialist in Finland. ” He likes to talk about himself. He really likes notoriety. He’s someone who fits the modern mold of today’s politician. “.
Still in favor of joining NATO
The political system in Finland is different from the one we know in France. The president somehow shares executive power with the government, which is also the case in foreign policy. And it is therefore with his government that Sauli Niiniströ took the decision to ask for his country’s membership in NATO after a vote by an overwhelming majority in Parliament: 188 votes in favor and only 8 against. The war in Ukraine waged since February 24 by Russia, a country with which Finland shares more than 1,300 kilometers of common land border, has completely changed the situation. The decision seems logical today believes Maurice Carrez: ” Membership of NATO, we did not see it coming, because for a very long time, a very large majority of public opinion had the greatest suspicion of the Atlantic military Alliance, because people did not want to risk having bad relations with Russia. And then there, the brutality of Putin did the rest. »
This decision, Sauli Niiniströ had always been in favor of it, “ Niinistö comes from a party that has long held the view that Finland should join NATO », Details Louis Clerc. ” Niinistö himself, once he became president, still adopted Finland’s foreign policy line, which was to stay outside NATO, but with the most cordial and advanced relations possible. »
► To read also: NATO: Finland formalizes its application to join the Atlantic Alliance
A place in the history books?
With this request to join NATO and after Finland’s entry into the European Union in 1995, the circle is complete, according to Maurice Carrez. And Sauli Niiniströ will certainly remain in the history books as the one who put an end to the neutrality of his country according to Louis Clerc. ” This government team and this president will go down in history for having taken one of the most important foreign policy decisions of independent Finland. An opinion shared by Maurice Carrez, even if according to this historian, Sauli Niinistö is not a president who will have marked his time. ” Undoubtedly in the history books we will speak of this or that speech or position. Now it’s neither Pasitivi nor Kekkonen. Niinistö, I do not want to devalue it either, but it still seems to me clearly below. I don’t think he can be considered someone essential in the history of Finland. »
Sauli Niinistö will nevertheless go down in history at the end of his second and last presidential term, even if he is not directly responsible for this historic change for Finland.
