EU leaders on Pre-Christmas tour to Lapland

The visiting politicians from Estonia, Greece, Italy and Sweden are all on the EU’s centre-right political spectrum.

Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (NCP) will host an informal mini-summit of EU leaders in Finnish Lapland, on the weekend of 21–22 December, the government announced on Thursday. The North-South Summit will be held at the Saariselkä ski resort in Inari. Orpo has invited EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy chief Kaja Kallas, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson to the meeting. Like Orpo’s National Coalition Party, they are all on the centre-right political spectrum, with ex-PM Kallas formerly leading the Estonian Reform Party. According to the official agenda, the five leaders are to discuss European security, defence and preparedness, as well as migration, its instrumentalisation and border security.

“Europe has to take greater responsibility for its own security,” Orpo said in a government press release. “This means that European countries have to be strong leaders, both in the EU and in Nato. Our greatest threat is Russia, which is trying to consolidate power and sow discord in Europe. The geopolitical situation is also very challenging in the Middle East and North Africa, for example,” he added. Finland has hosted several international meetings at Saariselkä, which lies some 250 km north of Rovaniemi and about 60 km from the Russian border.

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