New Finnish Gov't Expected To Hike Spending

Finland now has the lowest defense budget spend on defense of any Nordic country, with its annual military budget allocation now less than half that spent by either neighboring Norway or and Sweden.

Moreover, the Center and Finns are open to enhancing national and regional defense and security through deepening military cooperation with neighboring Nordic and Baltic states, all of whom, with the exclusion of fellow neutral state Sweden, are NATO-members.

The funding depleted state-of-health of Finland's military organization will be form a crucial element in government formation talks under the Center's chairman and Finland's Prime Minister-elect Juha Sipilä.

Although the Center and the Finns disagree on the future size of the spending increase, both parties estimate that the defense budget may need to be raised by between 5 percent to 15 percent from between 2016 to and 2024 in order to cover the cost of future big-ticket procurements.

The For Finland's defense, the foremost big-ticket item is the acquisition of a new fighter type to replace the Finnish Air Force's (FAF) fleet of 62 ageing McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornets that were bought in the 1990s.

The election result will please military chiefs who have warned that the weight of cost-reduction programs, combined with the low level of investment in defense, particularly since 2008, has greatly undermined the military's defense capability and ability to adequately defend all of its land, air and sea territories.

Efforts by government to bolster spending on defense since 2008 were hampered by a faltering economy that was seriously impaired by falling international demand for Finnish export products in the years following the global financial crisis.

The negative impact flowing from rising national debt and weakening central finances are reflected in the military's budget for 2015. This saw sSpending on defense fell fall by around 2 percent to $2.9 billion. The military's budget allocation had previously been cut, in real terms, in both 2013 and 2014.

The military Finnish Defense Force's (FDF) procurement budget will shrink by around 5 percent to $480 million in 2015. The FDF's international operations budget has fallen most, down by almost 36 percent to $41 million on 2014.

"Finland needs to have a strong and capable defense. We also need to develop better relations with Russia, and these two requirements and goals can exist side-by-side as part of our defense cooperation with the European Union, and our foreign and security policies," said Center chairman Juha Sipilä said.

"If we fail to resource the military in a proper way, our defense capability will decline and we will not be able to acquire the advanced hardware that we need now and will need in the future," said Haglund said.

Additional spending on defense is fundamental if the PDF is to adequately resource training, equipment acquisitions and elevate military preparedness, said defense chief Gen. Jarmo Lindberg said.

The "Kremlin" factor is not the primary force driving the PDF's bolstered readiness operations and activities, said Lindberg, who added that Russia has "done nothing" that could be construed as posing a direct threat to Finland.

"We still need to re-evaluate our defense preparedness due to the increased volume of military activities near our borders," Lindberg said. "The events that have happened in Ukraine and Crimea have changed the operating environment." Lindberg said.

The political will to strengthen the PDF's defense budget, both within the framework of the Center's government formation process and the linked Program for Government project, is gaining traction from growing public support for increased spending.

A survey conducted by TNS Gallup in March found that almost 60 percent of Finns favor the reinforcement of the defense budget in 206-2024. The same survey revealed that around one third of Finns would like to see a referendum held on the Finland-NATO membership issue.