Finnish Minister Promotes Defence Tech Ties With Australia During Trade Visit

Australia and Finland's trade relationship to date has focused on resources and telecommunications and, more recently, quantum technologies. Finland is a world leader and expanding manufacturer of high-tech defence technologies including armoured vehicles, mortar systems, and cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems.

The push for closer ties comes as Finland shares a long land border with Russia.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine occurred in 2022. That conflict prompted Finland to drop decades of staunch non-alignment dating back to the Cold War and join NATO. Finland has been a major provider of assistance to Ukraine.

"We support the sovereignty of a sovereign country. It is very important that the whole world understands the illegal nature of the full-scale war on a neighbouring country," Tavio said. While there has been increasing anxiety in Western Europe about Russian attacks beyond Ukraine, particularly after drones linked to Russia were seen over several European airports, Tavio said he saw no direct threat to Finland at present.

"Finland and the Nordics are pretty well prepared," he said. "Finland never stopped its preparedness for defence. " The minister said Russia's transformation into a war economy would be to its longer-term detriment because it had become isolated from the technological transformation occurring elsewhere in the world.

He endorsed the push for NATO countries to boost their spending to 5 per cent of GDP and said it had been a good thing that the United States had pushed Europe to spend more on defence. "But of course, the style with which the Trump administration is doing that often can be found to be rather offensive," Tavio said.

The US imposed tariffs on the EU and therefore on Finland in the wake of US President Donald Trump's Liberation Day.

Despite those measures, Tavio said Finland's trade with America had remained pretty stable. "The USA has remained one of our top trading partners. It is the most important trading top partner outside the EU," he said.

Tavio noted that Australia is the fifth-largest trade partner outside of Europe. He said the wars in Ukraine and Iran both led to the conclusion that geopolitics has been changing in a way that we should find the most like-minded countries and work together more. Abc reported that Tavio spoke during the Australian leg of the trade mission that also included New Zealand.