NATO Membership to Cost Finland $75-106Mln Annually, Foreign Minister Reveals

HELSINKI (Sputnik) - Finland is committed to maintaining its defense expenditure at 2% of its GDP when it becomes a member of NATO, while it will have to spend an additional 70-100 million euros ($75-106 million) for its administrative unit in the alliance per year, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said on Tuesday.

"The annual costs of joining NATO, its administration bodies and command structure are estimated at 70-100 million euros. As a member of NATO, Finland is committed to maintaining the level of defense spending at at least 2% of the country's GDP," Haavisto said when presenting the bill on Finland’s NATO membership to the parliament.

He added that additional personnel requirements caused by membership would amount to 110 people in 2023 and would be specified in due course. Membership will also induce greater volumes of classified documents to be processed by the Finnish authorities.

"One of the main consequences of NATO membership for the operations of the authorities will be the organizing of various national information security functions to the level provided by NATO information security requirements. The volume of classified information will increase, and demand for its processing will increase," Haavisto said.

Parliament Speaker Matti Vanhanen, in turn, noted that the bill could be adopted rapidly since 188 of 200 MPs had voted for NATO membership in spring.

Sweden and Finland, amid the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, applied for NATO membership on May 18. As of yet, only Turkey and Hungary have not ratified the Swedish and Finnish applications.