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Finland’s parliament voted to lift a total ban on nuclear weapons on Wednesday, to bring the country in line with NATO’s deterrence policy after joining the alliance in 2023.
The bill will permit nuclear weapons to be brought, transported, supplied, or possessed in Finland where the country’s military defence requires it.
While 125 deputies backed the government proposal, 61 voted against it, with another 13 absent from the chamber. Now that it has been approved by parliament it only requires the approval of the president.
The decision repeals the national ban on the import, production, possession and detonation of nuclear explosives from the country’s Nuclear Energy Act dating back to the 1980s.
It amends the criminal code to include the exceptions to a prohibition on nuclear weapons.
“With this proposal, we strengthen Finland’s defence and enable the full use of NATO’s nuclear deterrent as protection for Finland,” Defence Minister Antti Hakkanen posted on X on Tuesday, a day before the vote.
Finland dropped decades of military non-alliance to join NATO in April 2023 in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The proposal has sparked debate in Finland in recent months, as opposition parties have criticised Finland’s pivot away from its long-standing position of prohibiting nuclear weapons.
Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said earlier in June that Finland was interested in a French-led nuclear deterrence scheme to bolster security on the continent but no decision has been made on it.
In March, French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled a programme under which France, the European Union’s only nuclear-armed country, would use its atomic stockpile to boost security on the continent.
Additional sources • AFP