Finland's parliament approves NATO accession by 184 votes to 7
A look back at the vote in Helsinki on 1 March 2023, and at the diplomatic backdrop of China's position paper on Ukraine.
What did Finland's parliament decide on 1 March 2023? It voted 184–7 to formally approve the country's accession to NATO and to adopt the alliance's founding documents.
The margin left little doubt about the position of Finnish lawmakers. Even so, the process was not complete on that date: Hungary and Turkey had yet to approve Finland's membership.
The wider diplomatic backdrop
A few days earlier, on 24 February 2023, China had unveiled a 12-point position paper on ending the war in Ukraine, ahead of an expected speech by President Xi Jinping on the conflict. Ukraine said it hoped China could urge Russia to withdraw its troops in response to the paper.
Taken together, the two developments showed diplomacy around the war moving on separate tracks: one on security alignment in northern Europe, the other on proposals for ending the fighting.
