Finland’s defense minister says the current global situation requires a faster and easier call-up process to assemble reservists for training. Photo: puolustusvoimat.fi

Finland wants shorter call-up time for reservists

Finland’s Defence Minister Jussi Niinistö wants new legislation to shorten the call-up time for reservist training.
January 26, 2016

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Niinistö said Monday that the current three-month notice period for refresher training is far too long to respond to the threats in today’s world.

Defense Minister Jussi Niinistö said he wants to see a faster and easier call-up process to assemble reservists for training.  According to current legislation, reservists must receive an invitation to attend training three months before the event.

“In light of today’s threat assessment the time seems very long. Current regulations were laid down at a time when threats were believed to develop slowly and defense forces often had several months to prepare,” Niinistö said at the opening of the national defense course for reservists on Monday.

The Minister said that giving up the three-month call-up period would improve the ability of the defense forces to use reservists at short notice to ensure defense readiness. He also highlighted recent geopolitical events as a rationale for changing the present system.

“The toolbox must contain the kind of capability that would all us a faster call-up, if we needed to flexibly enhance readiness. For example in Ukraine the crisis involving the takeover in Crimea is an example of a rapidly developing crisis that is difficult to anticipate and for which Finnish reservists’ three-month call-up time would be far too long,” Niinistö added.

Legislative change coming in spring

The minister said that he hoped to bring new legislation on the matter to the Parliament during the spring. He stressed that in future reservists would get sufficient notice of call-ups for drills, unless there was some special cause for speed.

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“If as they say there is nothing going on it would make sense for the request to come in as ample time as possible. In that case three months could well be adequate from the perspective of employers as well as reservists’ personal situations,” he concluded.

This story is posted on Independent Barents Observer as part of Eye on the Arctic, a collaborative partnership between public and private circumpolar media organizations.

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