Arms Deal | Häkkänen Defends Israel Agreement: “This Is Entirely Normal”

Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen says Finland’s undisclosed 10-year cooperation agreement with Israel is a technical necessity, not a new political decision. The memorandum allows existing arms deals to continue after the government decided not to cancel them.

“ They are critically important for Finland’s air-defence arrangements, and they will not be cancelled,” Häkkänen said in Parliament on Tuesday. He said the agreement provides the practical framework for exchanging information and updating software linked to the systems Finland has purchased.

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They are critically important for Finland’s air-defence arrangements, and they will not be cancelled.

Without the memorandum, the previous arrangement would have expired, he said, effectively paralysing the work. “This agreement would have ended and it would, in practice, have paralysed operations. So we had to continue it. This is entirely normal,” Häkkänen said.

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This agreement would have ended and it would, in practice, have paralysed operations. So we had to continue it. This is entirely normal.

The agreement, signed for 10 years rather than the previous five-year periods, followed a Finnish proposal to extend the arrangement in early 2024. The signing was not publicly announced. Häkkänen said similar administrative agreements exist with about 40 countries and argued that suspending this one would have represented the larger policy change.

The deal has drawn opposition criticism because of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. The Left Alliance said its lawmakers would submit a written question asking, among other things, who knew about the memorandum. Green Party leader Sofia Virta called the government’s Israel policy “a historic disgrace.” Häkkänen said he could not identify everyone who knew about the signing, including whether key parliamentary committees or the prime minister and foreign minister had been informed.

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A historic disgrace.