{"id":60020,"date":"2018-03-26T14:18:14","date_gmt":"2018-03-26T14:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2018\/03\/26\/eu-must-be-more-open-with-us-about-defense-goals-finnish-official-warns\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T16:15:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T16:15:44","slug":"eu-must-be-more-open-with-us-about-defense-goals-finnish-official-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/global\/europe\/2018\/03\/26\/eu-must-be-more-open-with-us-about-defense-goals-finnish-official-warns\/","title":{"rendered":"EU must be more open with US about defense goals, Finnish official warns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 A top Finnish defense official wants the European Union needs to be more open with the United States and other partners about the goals of a new EU defense initiative<\/a>, or risk blowback from valuable allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finnish Defence Policy Director-General Janne Kuusela said comments from U.S. officials about the Permanent Structured Cooperation on security and defense, or PESCO, made at and around the Munich Security Conference<\/a> last month, should serve as a warning sign that EU nations have not done enough outreach to NATO members not involved in the new scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt kind of drove home to me that we need to make sure we have the transparency in place and we communicate clearly what we are doing and what we are not doing,\u201d Kuusela told Defense News during a recent visit to Washington. \u201cIf our most important partners are concerned<\/a>, it tells us that we haven\u2019t been communicating enough and been transparent enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to make sure that … these very important partners can walk along us and feel comfortable there,\u201d he added. \u201cSo it is something we need to focus on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PESCO is an EU initiative launched late last year with an eye toward potentially developing and procuring European defense products. It is still in its earliest stages. But already the fact the consortium includes a mix of NATO and non-NATO members, while excluding the U.S., U.K., Canada and Norway, has led to concerns it could undermine NATO goals. (Finland is one of the non-NATO nations to have joined up with PESCO, alongside Austria, Cyprus, Ireland and Sweden.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Feb. 13, Kay Bailey Hutchison, the U.S. permanent representative to NATO, warned against PESCO becoming<\/a> a \u201cprotectionist vehicle\u201d for the European defense industry, warning that such a trajectory \u201ccould splinter the strong security alliance that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar concerns were echoed by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis during a NATO visit that same week, with a Pentagon official stressing a big part of the U.S. concern comes from a lack of transparency from the PESCO nations about what the group actually represents.<\/p>\n\n\n\t