Policy Voices | Finnish President: Ukraine’s path to NATO membership is “irreversible”

Today in our show we wanted to do something different. Instead of our usual interview, we want to play the speech Alexander Stubb, the Finnish President, gave recently at Friends of Europe during his trip to Brussels where he met with Ursula von der Leyen, Jens Stoltenberg, among others. Before that, he had been in Ukraine where he encountered President Zelenskyy.

The Finnish President spoke freely, openly and candidly about Finland’s place in NATO, European defence at large, and how the EU and NATO must work together. As he put it: “National defence and international cooperation can and must go hand in hand. It is not either or. It is both.” On Ukraine, Stubb’s message couldn’t be clearer: “Ukraine’s place is as a full member of NATO and progress towards membership is irreversible”.

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