Talk:Finland–NATO relations/Archive 1

Stuff that can go in
I don't have great sources to hand for any of these, and I am making absolutely no promises that I'll actually work on these as opposed to hoping someone else gets around to them, but here's roughly what I think the article's presently missing:


 * History: Cold War, Finlandisation, process of joining PfP and any debate around it. There's a pretty heavy recentism bias (understandably); we should chart each government's position, and also whether the NATO question played a role in each election.


 * Cooperation: More details about the Afghanistan and Kosovo missions. Joint exercises.


 * Foreign opinions: Swedish and Estonian views could go in.


 * NATO's opinion: There's got to be a secretary general or someone equivalently official going on record on the open door policy as applied to Finland.


 * Polling: The table's woefully incomplete; there're 20+ years of polls missing from it.


 * Potential effects of joining & the accession process: Mining the recent government report would be great for this.

FrankSpheres (talk) 16:21, 25 April 2022 (UTC)


 * A stab at outlining the shape of the missing polls:


 * HS-Gallup going back to 2002. The writeup from the January 2022 poll says that they'd been conducted 23 times; the table has two prior ones in right now, so that means it's missing 20.


 * Table has this full series!


 * Table has all but one of these; the 1998 one may need some legwork (see below).


 * Yle and MTV. I don't know how many we're missing here, or how to get a complete series for either of these.


 * Any other polling that I just don't know about.


 * FrankSpheres (talk) 11:03, 26 April 2022 (UTC)


 * More thoughts on what I'd love to be able to say in the article:


 * Secondary source characterisations of NATO's position wrt Finnish membership - they've (historically) been very cagey about saying outright that they want a Finnish application, and have emphasised the open door policy without spelling it out.


 * The actual issues in the debate, as opposed to process: nuclear weapons, foreign bases, the relationship with Russia, American foreign policy, the possibility of being called on to fight by article 5, the probability of needing to invoke article 5 themselves, and anything else that's been discussed. What's been salient, what've the various different actors said, etc. Again, a secondary source describing this in a historical perspective would be needed.


 * At some point, the literature in Finnish will need to be brought in. The fiwiki article has a hefty bibliography that might make for a good starting point. FrankSpheres (talk) 17:34, 5 May 2022 (UTC)


 * More known-unknown polling:


 * this 1999 writeup from Verkkouutiset describes a whole bunch of polls from the 1990s.


 * Verkkouutiset themselves seem to have irregularly commissioned some polling, but the article presently has all of their polls I was able to turn up. So, if they did more polls, they're unknown unknowns.


 * MT may have commissioned more polls. Likewise the other Finnish news organisations I haven't touched on yet.


 * The Finnish Social Science Data Archive has a searchable index on all questions asked. That search is for the English translations of questions; there might be untranslated Finnish questions as well. EVA and ABDI deposit their data there and those are already in the table or easily findable and put-in-able, but there's at least a few more surveys in there on NATO membership that might be useful. I looked at this one but couldn't find a copy of the resulting research, and the numbers in the archive are unweighted (i.e., needing some statistics applied to them, which constitutes original research).


 * FrankSpheres (talk) 23:49, 8 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Had some trouble tracking down EVA's 1999 report, which has a NATO question; it doesn't seem to be online anywhere. This seems to be the FSSDA record for the survey, and this is the Finnish National Library's record for the report in Finnish and in English. In theory, we have most of the information that'd go in to the table already: the FSSDA has sample size + fieldwork dates, and other EVA reports include this report's numbers as part of a timeseries (though, less than ideally, they split into strong/weak support/oppose, and summing the pre-rounded numbers loses precision compared to calculating support/oppose from the raw data; ideally, the report will have that, though a couple of the other EVA reports lacked it). However, that's requiring inferences, and skating a bit close to original research, so I'm not going to do that. This _might_ take someone in Helsinki visiting the library. The good news is that, other than this one, all of the rest of the EVA publications on the NATO question seem to be online. FrankSpheres (talk) 17:08, 18 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Iltalehti write-up of a 2014 poll they commissioned. No fieldwork dates or sample size, and doesn't explicitly report the DK number, so I'm leaving it out pending chasing down those details.


 * Similarly deficient write-up of a 2014 poll commissioned by SK. (Or maybe the details are there, behind a very poorly-advertised paywall - it's not at all clear to me that that's not the full article.)


 * Those two write-ups both mention another poll commissioned by Alma Media a week earlier (so ~second week of March) for its regional papers. Haven't looked too hard to turn it up.


 * FrankSpheres (talk) 13:57, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Sources scrapbook
MT poll, late Jan/Feb 2022. Doesn't report the unconditional NATO support/opposition as far as I can tell (was it even asked?), only the conditional-on-state-leadership-recommends-membership question, so it doesn't go in the table. FrankSpheres (talk) 23:26, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Yle/Magma poll of Swedish speakers; obviously not suitable for putting in the table alongside the rest of the all-Finland polls. Could be put in a table of its own? I don't know how many of these there are so it might be a bit bare. FrankSpheres (talk) 10:57, 10 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Rahkonen, Juho. "Public Opinion, Journalism and the Question of Finland’s Membership of NATO" Nordicom Review, vol.28, no.2, 2017, pp.81-92. https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0211

Secondary source looking at the media's role. Probably worth integrating. FrankSpheres (talk) 15:24, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Yle poll of Russian speakers. Again, not for the main table. FrankSpheres (talk) 15:19, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Ratification timeline
The table showing ratification status could use improvement. For one thing, the data in the table still has to be sourced to RS. In addition, it would be great to have a column for notes, where the status of ratification procedures in each NATO nation could be summarized. The ratification process will vary from member nation to member nation, and it would be interesting documenting the steps and process. Doing a good job here (and for Sweden) could become a template for whatever application is received next. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:58, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Beefed up the table with all of the above. Did the same at the Sweden–NATO relations article.  Ergo Sum  19:05, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Canada, iceland and denmark have already ratified the accession protocols in their parliaments. The protocols will come in force after the official start of the negotation process. LG Sascha J. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A03:4B22:6110:DF01:C91F:A6CE:F02A:846F (talk) 08:38, 8 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Norway has also ratified the protocols. Norway, Iceland and Denmark has issued a joint statement that they have ratified the protocols and deposited the instruments in W. DC. : https://www.stm.dk/presse/pressemeddelelser/denmark-iceland-and-norway-are-ready-to-ratify-finland-and-sweden-s-accession-to-nato/
 * The vote in the Danish Parliament to ratify the protocols for both Sweden and Finland can be found her: https://www.ft.dk/samling/20211/beslutningsforslag/b203/121/509/afstemning.htm. (95 in favor, 0 opposed, 0 abstentions, 84 not present) Jakobjr7 (talk) 10:54, 5 July 2022 (UTC)


 * The Accession Protocols have been signed so might as well start updating the ratification table Scaramouche33 (talk) 11:55, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The full article should also be moved to "Accession of Finland to NATO" like in privious cases. --Stefan040780 (talk) 14:44, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Disagree. There's 30 years of non-membership relations to cover (and arguably even stretching further back than that). And, e.g., Romania-NATO relations is still at that title, not 'Accession of Romania to NATO', so it's not even a solid precedent. FrankSpheres (talk) 16:09, 5 July 2022 (UTC)


 * German Bundestag will vote on the issue Friday(July, 8th) and the German Bundesrat on the same day. 2A02:908:C33:A180:4161:88FD:50B8:9AF0 (talk) 15:41, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Canada Parliament did NOT ratify the Protocol, but simply voted on NATO to accept Finland's application.
 * The Government ratified it on 5 July 2022. Hetsre (talk) 20:01, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

wrong date
considering how it's still july 5th, i doubt the danish parliament has voted to ratify the ascention on july 7th

i checked the danish parliament website and july 7th is indeed the date mentioned, but it can't be correct

anybody knows what's going on? Iceylore (talk) 23:35, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The article and the website say June 7, not July 7.  Ergo Sum  23:39, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

til I forgot July is the 7th month of the year

i apologise lmao Iceylore (talk) 23:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Confusion about Ratification
Since the timing between signature and ratification of the Protocol is very short in this case, there is a lot of confusion about the two. Ministers of Foreign Affairs of all the 30 members signed the Protocol on July 5, and now it needs to be ratified by each country according to their respective procedures. Please try to avoid using sources related to the signature to confirm ratification. When in doubt WP:NORUSH. Hetsre (talk) 15:25, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Thoughts on combining tables
Below I've combined the two tables under the section Membership timelines, since the bigger second table actually contains events that occur in the middle of the smaller first table. I'm not sold that this combined table is better and am not positive that it is accessible, but I thought I'd let people think about it here.

 Ergo Sum  04:21, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Notes


 * I like having the ratification table visible, since that's where the present interest is. I'm also squidgy on the accessibility - I'd thought there was some problem with nested tables, but now I can't find where I thought I'd read it. But MOS:DONTHIDE says it ought to be expanded by default, which seems to limit the wins from nesting. FrankSpheres (talk) 11:04, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think two tables are better. Once the ratification process will be over, that line in the first table can be removed, as for other similar articles. Hetsre (talk) 14:57, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't really think the line in table 1 should be removed later because it would still be confusing to the reader why there is a chronological gap in table 1 whose dates all appear in table 2.  Ergo Sum  15:13, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * e.g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Macedonia%E2%80%93NATO_relations#Accession Hetsre (talk) 16:33, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Finland–NATO relations which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 03:52, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 7 July 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. (non-admin closure) Natg 19 (talk) 01:50, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

– Both countries have begun the accession process. While neither is complete, this is not required for an accession article. See Accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to NATO. DilatoryRevolution (talk) 03:20, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Finland–NATO relations → Accession of Finland to NATO
 * Sweden–NATO relations → Accession of Sweden to NATO


 * Comment No strong opinion, but as a comment I don't find the Accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to NATO argument terribly convincing: that article was created directly under that title and appears to have been never discussed to any degree. At least to me, Accession of X to NATO reads primarily as a completed process and I don't find the current title terribly offensive. Ljleppan (talk) 07:51, 7 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose. 30 (plus) years of pre-application history means that a general 'relations' title is more appropriate. Romania-NATO relations demonstrates there's not a uniform precedent. FrankSpheres (talk) 08:58, 7 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I have been thinking about this and wonder if there should be two articles here, one for the pre-application history and a second for the application/ratification process(which would be called "Accession of..."). 331dot (talk) 09:01, 7 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Support S.G ReDark (talk) 11:42, 7 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose. At the moment, I'm inclined to think the current name is more appropriate. Unlike for the article Accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to NATO, Bosnia has been on the somewhat formal track to join NATO since 2008, and so all of its relations with NATO in the recent past have been in the context of membership. Sweden, on the other hand, was explicitly not interested in joining NATO until very recently and took no concrete steps toward membership until 2022. Yet, Sweden has had a developed relationship with NATO for a long time. This article addresses all of that, so I think it should not just be called accession.  Ergo Sum  13:04, 7 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The article intends is cleary to sumarize the history of relationship between the Organization and Finland, the title proposed seems to lead to an article only about the accession process, something that has not happened yet. A better solution could be adding a section in the article regarding the process and then when Finland and Sweden become fully members of NATO, fuse both articles as 2022 enlargement of NATO simlirar to the EU articles regarding similar process. AlexMayE96 (talk) 13:30, 7 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose. This article is not just the current process of accession. Renaming would imply a loss of information (or an inappropriately named article). User:331dot's suggestion of two articles, one for accession and one for pre-application relations seems like the best solution to me. Stowgull (talk) 21:18, 7 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose until after accession is 100% complete. I agree with previous people who pointed out that 1) these two countries' circumstances are different from others, so past examples are not that instructive here; and 2) the change would imply the page is specifically about the accession and the previous relations are secondary, which is inaccurate currently. Note that the accession process is a form of "relations", but not vice versa, so the current title is perfectly accurate. I am more neutral on what to do after. I think it would be fine to simply rename it at that point, since any relations before becoming members can be viewed as preliminary events on the way to accession. A split seems fine too, although I instinctively feel it's odd to keep a page about an entity's relationship to another entity which it's a part of; "prior to membership" or similar might be a decent rename. Jerodast (talk) 07:18, 8 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The current title includes both the history of relations between the two as well as any notable interactions in the future. Moving the article would limit its scope. Also agree with above arguments that Accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to NATO is the exception rather than the norm considering the amount of Country-NATO relations named articles.Yeoutie (talk) 11:35, 12 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Support after ratification. I think that the past history of interactions can be included in a background paragraph. Future interactions can be included in some other article, but certainly not this article under its current title. PhotographyEdits (talk) 15:38, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose The current title is more in line with other countries that have acceded the treaty. Maybe splitting the article could be done though. Gust Justice (talk) 15:39, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose – I would favor a split into such articles than renaming these articles due to the fact that there are aspects of them that wouldn't fit through the lens of articles given the proposed titles. Jay Coop &middot;&#32;Talk &middot;&#32;Contributions 22:42, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Romania
Found this news: On Monday, President Klaus Iohannis signed the decree for the submission of the two protocols to the Parliament for ratification, after last Wednesday the Government approved the draft law in this respect.

Will this count as ratification from the Romanian Presidential Assent? Daniel Sirensjo (talk) 21:48, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Same as the Swedish article; let's discuss it there. — kwami (talk) 23:04, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Counting progress
Greetings from, yes, Finland! Just a comment about counting the progress of ratification. This article seems to mainly concentrate on the legal aspect so that the only counting shows the number of nations who have deposited their instruments of ratification (IoR). True, that is the ultimate criterion for ratification. Or actually, not even that is the final ratification, since only 100 % deposition by all 30 nations counts, and e.g. 29/30 depositions is in a way nothing. Anyway, the deposition count currently shows 14/30.

However, there is, in addition to the legal aspect, at least the political aspect: how many nations have in effect completed their ratification so that the only missing thing from their part is the technicality of depositing their IoR to Washington D.C. Such countries have already shown politically their support for Finland (and Sweden) to join NATO. IMO this is far more important and more interesting than the deposition count, since as far as we know, depositions are (as important as they are legally) only a technicality, and of course not at all possible without the actual political decisions in each country. Typically, nations announce to have completed their ratification on Twitter etc. before they have sent their IoR to be deposited. The count of these ratifications is 23/30 at the moment, and e.g. the ever so important USA included there but not yet in the 14/30. I don't think so that "Ok, USA has not deposited, so the announcements by their House of Representatives, Senate, and POTUS are next to nothing..."

So, I disagree with the comment in the article's revision history saying "announced ratification" means nothing in terms of the process. I strongly feel, monitoring the progress here in Finland, that it is much more important and interesting to count how many nations have completed their ratification actions (like votings in parliaments, signatures by their leaders etc.) and thus shown their political support, than counting technical depositions. Actually, counting depositions while they keep coming in is not very important, since it is only important that all 30 are there in the end. Which won't happen if only one nation refuses to ratify - in which case the political aspect is everything and the legal aspect of all depositions so far may turn to be next to nothing...

On the Finnish article we currently follow three counts: how many nations have not yet commenced their ratification or their ratification process is in progress (7/30 = 23 %), how many have completed their ratification with only the deposition missing (9/30 = 30 %), and how many have already also deposited their IoR (obviously, 14/30 = 47 %). The last two combined is 23/30 = 77 %.

This is only a point of view from here, inspired by the one comment on the review history (BTW, nothing personal towards the user who made the comment, which only inspired this rumination of mine), not to say anything about what should or should not be in the English article. And of course all of the above can be seen in detail on the long table showing all the institutions country by country. :-) 195.165.138.67 (talk) 22:41, 12 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I've seen counts like what you describe, but I've also seen counts where they include countries after passage by the leg but before royal/presidential consent. That assumes there won't be a veto, but even so isn't full ratification. I wouldn't be against two counts, but I think it's important to show how many countries have completed the task. I'll add a second row and see if ppl accept it. — kwami (talk) 23:29, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

BTW, if it just needs to be deposited w the US State Dept, why wouldn't the US ratification be deposited the same day? Are we awaiting an announcement that will never happen? — kwami (talk) 23:40, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, USA haven't deposited with the US State Department yet. Once they deposit, it will be shown on the official document https://www.state.gov/protocol-to-the-north-atlantic-treaty-on-the-accession-of-finland/ Hetsre (talk) 03:58, 13 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I noticed that it says "Acceptance of the Protocol is for the European part of the Netherlands." I assume that is because Aruba etc. are not part of NATO. But there is no similar note about Denmark, so does that confirm taht the Faroes and Greenland are in NATO? — kwami (talk) 05:16, 13 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes, they both are part of NATO

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_162357.htm Hetsre (talk) 13:00, 13 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Is Bonaire part of NATO, since it's a municipality of the Netherlands, or not, because it's overseas? — kwami (talk) 21:07, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Belgium
Belgium's Minister of Foreign Affairs claims the ratification process is done, yet I can't find the page on the parliament website showing that royal assent has been given (if this was done on July 20 or 21). Is anyone able to find a relevant link? 🌈  4🧚‍♂am KING  👑 21:24, 22 July 2022 (UTC)


 * As discussed in Sweden-NATO page, the MFA signed for the King, so the two tweets can be used as proof of Royal Assent. Hetsre (talk) 14:23, 12 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't have a doubt, I'm sure this is how it works, the MFA signs for the King. But IMO there should be direct sources for facts in Wikipedia, not something that requires such deduction as this here, from different pictures etc. (the latter one maybe not even from the same signing event?), as if collecting partial evidence for a case in a court of justice in lack of a single crucial piece of evidence, a smoking gun if you wish. I do realize that there is eagerness to show progress in the ratification process (and I'm a Finn so I for one am eager, too), but I'd still rather wait for actual documents to be published (see for example the ratification by Belgium for North Macedonia's application, where the official source was eventually published, although after a rather long time, it seems). I'm basically talking about Wikipedia principles for building a reliable and solid-based encyclopedia. So my answer is: we should be patient and just wait until an exact source is available, not pile secondary evidence ― not to say that I doubt the currently linked materials as such. 195.165.138.67 (talk) 15:50, 12 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't disagree with you and I sympathize with your instinct to want a source that definitively states the fact and date of the Belgian king's assent. However, the fact that the Belgian government deposited their instrument of ratification with the US State Department necessarily means that the king gave his assent. So, at the very least, I think it is appropriate for the article to indicate that royal assent was granted and highlight it in green, since no other possible occurrence is possible. As far as the date of royal assent is concerned, I'm less sure that we can definitively state that with certainty, since the source definitely does not state that explicitly and it does require some degree of uncertain inference.  Ergo Sum  15:59, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree that it is not the best source, but I find it valid at least until the official one will be available (I am not able to find it). I also agree with @Ergo Sum to indicate that royal assent was granted and highlight it in green, even without date. Something similar happened with Norway, and the Royal Assent date was amended when the official source became available. Hetsre (talk) 17:29, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree with both of you, and especially that the only way the IoR can have been deposited is that the Royal assent exists even if not yet published (likely due to normal bureaucracy). But if I have understood it correctly, the Better source needed template may and should be used as a marker and reminder where a better source is later desirable even if it doesn't yet exist or cannot be found. Otherwise the need is easily forgotten. That is why I placed the marker there initially, not with a criticizing tone. IMO this template does not mean that people should instantly feel an urge to, as quickly as possible, find at least something to serve as a source. Neither does it mean that the already existing references are bad, just a little lacking for now. Anyway, thanks for the discussion :-) ! 195.165.138.67 (talk) 17:57, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I removed the template since the image in the second tweet give an indication about the King, but in favor of reinstating it with a different justification, e.g. "Direct/official source preferable". Hetsre (talk) 18:31, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

The law has been published |flwb&language=nl&cfm=flwbn.cfm?lang=N&dossierID=2816&legislat=55. Royal assent was granted on the same day as the instrument of ratification.--Mike Rohsopht (talk) 09:33, 25 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks, fixed it. Hetsre (talk) 18:37, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Membership timeline map
On the map there is no border between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. 83.4.50.92 (talk) 19:16, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

September ratifications
We have sources (some stronger than others) for possible ratification during September for: Greece, Slovakia, Spain, and Portugal. Please provide a source for Hungary before modifying the table. Pre-emptively, the same holds for Turkey in October. Hetsre (talk) 19:30, 2 September 2022 (UTC)


 * According to these evaluations, Hungary could be the last to ratify, at least for Orban's signature. (That according to a former Hungarian ambassador to the US.) Turkey might be as late as after the June 2023 elections. The others are expected this year, though they don't yet have an evaluation for Portugal ('coming soon'). Slovakia expected Sept, Greece after summer recess & before end of year, Spain probably Oct. or Nov. Those evaluations are not being updated, but the Spanish one is recent. — kwami (talk) 21:38, 2 September 2022 (UTC)