Europe’s ‘holiday from history is now over’, Finnish President Stubb tells Euronews

euronews (in English)

"It is in our vested self-interest to promote and spend more on defence," Finnish president Alexander Stubb tells Euronews.

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00:00Finland has hosted the first NATO Baltic Sea Summit to bolster defenses against hostile

00:06acts such as attacks on critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.

00:10On Christmas Day, Finnish authorities seized an oil tanker suspected to be responsible

00:15for damaging undersea communications cables.

00:18Over 95 percent of the world's data is transported through the cables.

00:23Russia and China are regularly accused of sabotaging them as part of hybrid war.

00:28Finnish President Alexander Stubb told Euronews his country is well prepared but overall Europe

00:34needs to do more.

00:37There's a lot of malintent coming from the Russian Federation at this particular moment

00:41and it's a new normal that we have to live with and of course in a country like Finland

00:45which has 1,300 kilometers of border with Russia, we're quite used to this.

00:50So we're coping with it, we're staying calm, cool and collected.

00:54We take necessary measures including joining NATO, we take necessary measures including

00:59confiscating vessels so we're quite relaxed about it really.

01:05Because Mark Rutte isn't.

01:06He said that while we're not in a kinetic war now and we are safe in four to five years,

01:12we won't be unless Europe steps up on security and defense.

01:16Well the Secretary General of NATO is concerned about the whole alliance.

01:20As President of Finland, I'm concerned about the state of our defense and I have to say

01:25that we never dropped our guard.

01:26We still have compulsory military service.

01:29We have 900,000 men and women in reserves, 280,000 that we can mobilize at wartime.

01:36We have 62 F-18s.

01:38We have soon 64 F-35s.

01:41We have long-range missiles, land, air and sea and we have the largest artillery in Europe

01:47together with Poland.

01:49So I sleep my nights quite well and I hope that our allies do as well because they can

01:54be quite assured that we play our part in the alliance.

01:58But you're also an expert on the EU, having spent a lot of time there.

02:02What would you urge Europe to do for the sake of Finland and 27 member states altogether

02:09to ensure that Europe will be safe?

02:12Well I think there are a few things that we need to do.

02:15First is we need to hike up our defense expenditure because our holiday from history is now over.

02:21So it is in our vested self-interest to promote and spend more on defense, unfortunately of

02:27course.

02:28Secondly, we need to pool our defenses better.

02:32So we need to do orders together in order to bring down the price of them.

02:37And of course the third thing we need to do is to work very closely with our closest ally,

02:41the United States.

02:42Donald Trump has said that he would like to take over Greenland.

02:45So it's not a great start, is it?

02:47Well, we'll take one step at a time and I think the sort of calm response from the Prime

02:53Minister of Denmark is the correct one.

02:56Okay, President Stolte, thank you very much for joining us.

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