Page:The Effects of Finland's Possible NATO Membership - An Assessment.pdf/20

 stated policy remains not to forsake the possibility to apply for membership. The political significance of the NATO partnership has been further strengthened due to the growing tension in Northern Europe and the slow progress of the EU’s common security and defence policy.

As a part of Finland’s security policy, the NATO partnership clearly has a political and military function. The military part revolves around enhancing interoperability with NATO forces, where significant steps have been taken since 1995 when Finland began to participate in the PfP’s Planning and Review Process (PARP). Finland has chosen a broad range of partnership goals and they currently cover the whole development programme of the Finnish Defence Forces. Interoperability created in NATO’s framework also supports military cooperation in the EU and NORDEFCO frameworks. According to NATO’s assessments, Finland currently reaches an overall high level of interoperability.

Interoperability is tested in practice in those military exercises that are open to partner countries as well as in NATO-led crisis management operations, which have formed the political core of Finland’s partnership. To signal this, on occasion Finland’s contribution to NATO-led operations reached a numerically higher level than its contribution to other multilateral operations. This activity started along with NATO’s IFOR and SFOR operations in Bosnia, where Finland sent a construction battalion from 1996 onwards. To be able to do this, Finland’s legislation on international peace-keeping, however, had to undergo a number of principled changes as it did not allow participation in operations led by actors other than the UN and OSCE. Further, the mandate for the use of force in international operations had to be extended in this context. The Finnish contribution to the initial KFOR operation in Kosovo in 1999 reached some 800 soldiers whereas in ISAF, Afghanistan, its role remained at the company level. Another major step with the partnership was taken through participation in NATO’s Response Force (NRF), which has contained units from all the military branches and joint exercises.

The future of the PfP programme has been unclear ever since the major group of partners joined NATO. The most recent developments indicate NATO’s willingness to provide its most advanced partners with a special status which, to some extent, blurs the distinction between members and partners.

Irrespective of this, the Atlantic Alliance makes it clear that the organisation’s security guarantees apply to members only. Full access to collec- 20