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A new poll by the organisation YouGov has revealed that a majority of the Finnish public continues to be opposed to the deployment of nuclear weapons in the country.
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The 1987 law that bans nuclear weapons from the country, prohibiting the importation of nuclear warheads, as well as their transport, delivery or possession on the country’s territory, faces a crucial repeal vote in the coming days . The government claims the law is incompatible with Finland’s membership of NATO, which the country joined in 2023 after decades of neutrality. This argument is widely disputed given there is no mention of nuclear weapons in the North Atlantic Treaty, the alliance’s legal foundation, and also that NATO members have different policies on several controversial weapons, such as landmines and cluster munitions, without it impeding the working of the alliance. While public opinion in Finland is largely supportive of NATO membership, it remains opposed to nuclear weapons and is specifically opposed to the presence of nuclear weapons on Finnish soil. This has been re-emphasised by a new poll conducted by YouGov for the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) that has found that only 18% support the deployment of nuclear weapons in the country, while 58% are opposed. A coalition of civil society organisations and anti-nuclear weapons campaigners, including ICAN Finland, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Finnish Pugwash are opposing the change by pointing out that there is no operational need for Finland to have nuclear weapons on its soil. ICAN’s Executive Director, Melissa Parke, said: “Parliamentarians should reject this proposal. Finland's nuclear prohibition law is not a relic. It is a hard-won recognition that security rests on international law and a rules-based order that protects smaller states. The argument for changing the law is flawed, as the war in Ukraine shows. Russia has spent four years issuing nuclear threats, yet intimidated nobody into surrender and gained no military advantage from them. Nuclear weapons are not tools of war-fighting.” Researchers at the think tank, SIPRI, have also said that given Finland is only 160 kilometers from one of Russia’s main bases for its nuclear-armed submarines, this change could lower Moscow’s threshold for pre-emptive strikes. In other words, it would make Finland a nuclear target in the event of a NATO-Russia conflict at a time when tensions between the two are already at a historic high. |
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For further information or to request an interview, contact: Alistair Burnett, ICAN Head of Communications [email protected] +41 78 238 7179 |