Europe is facing increasingly hybrid threats, and it lacks a shared culture of preparedness, according to our guest. Sauli Niinistö was the president of Finland from 201HJYYUU2 to 2024 and is now a special advisor to the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. In that capacity, he has authored a major report: “Safer together: A path towards a fully prepared Union”. We discuss Niinistö’s proposals to improve the EU’s civil and military preparedness, and debrief some of the latest international diplomatic manoeuvres related to Ukraine.
We start with US President Donald Trump‘s phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, and what it means for Ukraine and for Europe. “I’m very supportive of any kind of attempt to make peace. That’s always better than continuing war,” Niinistö responds. “But Ukraine deserves a fair and just peace. Peace in Ukraine has an impact on Europe as a whole, on European security as a whole. That is one reason why Europeans should be involved in those discussions. The other reason is that we have been helping Ukraine in a remarkable way during the war.”
Niinistö surmises that current discussions in the EU are focused on security guarantees for Ukraine, rather than on NATO membership for Ukraine. “If the USA and European countries guarantee the peace strongly, that actually doesn’t differ very much from NATO membership,” he states. “So things depend on what kind of guarantee is given. In my opinion the guarantees should be very strong.”
In his report, Niinistö bluntly asserts that the EU is not prepared for the scenario of an armed aggression against an EU member state. “My basic idea is that Europe is seen as weak,” he elaborates. “And that is what Putin has clearly said. That Western people are weak, and thus Western countries are weak. We have to show that we are strong: not to wage war, but to avoid war. That’s the key issue.” Niinistö adds that the EU should be much clearer about how article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty should work in practice. “There’s a very strong moral and ethical obligation to help another EU country in the case of an armed attack. But this treaty article is not clear in all of its context,” he says.
And how can the EU prepare for scenarios that are a barely imaginable at the moment? “I am worried about the future. In just a couple of years’ time, we will face a situation where AI, cyber technology, hybrid space technology, or quantum technology, will make us ask what a weapon is. And what is a war, actually? So preparing against everything is the most demanding challenge,” Niinistö asserts. “We will not only be facing a military threat. We will have the consequences of climate change. How do you react to being without electricity? And what about reserving food or water for a few days? That’s part of my proposals.”
The former Finnish president insists that ordinary citizens need to be at the forefront of preparedness. “I want to emphasise participation,” he says. “Any kind of civil participation, especially by young people. In Finland we have conscription, which I understand is out of the question in many European countries. But there are possibilities to take part in civil or military protection activities on a voluntary basis, and to bring security closer to people, so that they see what needs to be done.”
Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero and Luke Brown
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