NATO Secretary General welcomes deepened cooperation with Finland and Sweden
Finnish Defence Minister Antti Kaikkonen: “280,000 troops for our wartime forces.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg praised Finland and Sweden’s close partnership with NATO while visiting the Berga Naval Base with the North Atlantic Council, on Wednesday (27 October 2021). During the visit, they had the opportunity to witness the joint Swedish/Finnish Naval Exercise, SWENEX-21.
“It is important that NATO Allies, Finland and Sweden continue to train and exercise together” said the Secretary General. “Over the years, we have been working more and more closely together and we have seen the security situation in the region deteriorate, with Russia’s aggressive posturing and its military build-up. This makes our cooperation even more important” he added, speaking alongside the Swedish Defence Minister, Peter Hultqvist, and the Finnish Defence Minister, Antti Kaikkonen.
Although Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces Micael Bydén, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist and Finnish Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen are all Scandinavians, the press conference was conducted entirely in NATO’s official language: English.
Anti-bellum 
That’s a gas. Conference conducted in English. Bow down to Biden you Nordic serfs!
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There is no one Scandinavian language. Since all of them speak a different language it is customary to conduct their business in English, since practically all Scandinavians speak English but not that many speak the other’s language. And whether it is well placed or not, many Scandinavians have a deep distrust of Russia. That is the reality. And so NATO – a USA operation – exploits that sentiment.
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Thanks for the clarification. I’m aware that Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish are distinct languages, Finnish being the most distinct of the three. I’m also aware that English has become the international business and diplomatic language, supplanting French in the second category. But NATO uses English as its lingua franca in all contexts, even in training the officer corps of its international partners (of which there are 40 in five continents). If a meeting of defense ministers of NATO member Germany and NATO partners Austria and Switzerland were to occur, the public statements would all be in English although all the parties spoke German. Though not everyone is aware of the latter fact. You may recall then-President Barack Obama at a press conference at NATO headquarters responding to an Austrian journalist with, “I don’t know how you say that in Austrian.”
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No, I think NATO is truly democratic in that it represents all of the oligarchs in the West, not just the US ones. Anyway, you guys live right next door to each other. I would think you’d know each other’s languages. Many people here in the US speak both Spanish and english for example.
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