(By Massimiliano D'Elia) Yesterday from Finland a historic decision by the president Sauli Niinistö and the premier Sanna Marin that on the opinion of adhesion to the NATO they wrote: "Finland must apply for NATO membership without delay". On Sunday, after the parliamentary confrontation, the decision will take the expected bureaucratic process of joining the Alliance.
The two highest national offices reported that "it took some time to allow Parliament and society as a whole to take a stand on this issue. It took time for international contacts with NATO and its member countries, as well as with the Sweden. We wanted to reserve the necessary space for discussion".
Sweden could also follow Finland. The Swedish foreign minister commented on the statements of Niinistö e Marine "an important message that Finland, the closest partner to Sweden in terms of security and defense, could follow ”.
Moscow's response was immediate: "For us this is a threat"Kremlin spokesman Peskov said, adding that "Moscow will take the necessary measures to guarantee its own security ”. The threat of the use of nuclear weapons is increasingly raised on Russian television broadcasts.
The secretary general of NATO Jens Stoltenberg he said Finland's candidacy will be warmly received and the accession process will be smooth and swift even if it requires ratification by all members of the Alliance first.
The European Union and the common defense
A background told by Marco Bresolin in La Stampa reveals that the European Union wants to establish a single purchasing center for military equipment, to favor joint procurement and avoid competition between member states and above all to avoid overlapping.
The proposal is contained in the document that will be presented Wednesday by the Commission - of which "La Stampa" has viewed a draft - and which starts from an unequivocal assumption: "Europe will face the largest increase in military spending since World War II".
The document sets out an analysis of the gaps in military investments, as requested by the Versailles summit, and puts forward a series of proposals that will be at the center of the European Council on May 30-31.
Speaking of numbers the document reveals that in 2020 the EU countries spent around 200 billion euros on defense, a figure that in 2021 rose to 220 billion and is set to increase. In this regard, the Commission specifies that "Member States have so far announced that there will be significant increases in their defense budgets over the next few years, an additional € 200 billion ".
If everyone reached the target set by NATO of 2% of GDP, the share of military spending would increase by 60-70 billion euros a year. The problem is that, to date, only 11% of military spending is made through shared investments, the remaining 89% follows purely national logic.
The Commission proposes to set up a dedicated group to coordinate very short-term needs, such as ammunition replenishment. This special group should be in charge of acting as an order collector and then as a sorting center for the material. Furthermore, the document advances the hypothesis of introducing a new extra-budgetary fund based on voluntary contributions from the States to finance joint projects and of introducing financial incentives such as the exemption from VAT for joint contracts involving at least three countries.
The EU's Achilles heel
Missile defense against the threat of Russian hypersonic super weapons will be the real core business of the forthcoming joint investments of EU countries. The conflict in Ukraine has also brought to the fore the value of smaller drones with surveillance capabilities and those with "killer" capabilities. Then there is the need to update and expand the existing inventory of the main battle tanks and armored combat vehicles. Investments will be important to modernize and make the equipment of the national fleets more consistent.