Eight eastern EU member states meet for inaugural security summit in Helsinki

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

The leaders of eight countries on the European Union’s eastern flank have met in the first summit of its kind to discuss closer security cooperation.

At the gathering in Helsinki, Finland and Poland announced that they would jointly lead a planned EU initiative, dubbed Eastern Flank Watch, to bolster defences in frontline states. They were joined in the Finnish capital by Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Lithuania.

The threat of Russia – which five of the eight countries border – was top of the agenda at the inaugural Eastern Flank Summit.

“Russia is the most significant, direct and long-term threat to our security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area,” read the first sentence of a 13-point joint declaration signed by the participating leaders.

Other parts emphasised the need to support Ukraine and to bolster European defence spending and military readiness, including Poland’s East Shield programme to bolster security infrastructure on its borders with Belarus and Russia.

“By uniting at the highest political level, we send a clear and unequivocal message: Europe’s Eastern Flank is a common responsibility and must be defended with urgency, leadership and resolve,” concluded the declaration.

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The prime ministers of Finland and Poland, Petteri Orpo and Donald Tusk, announced that their two countries would together lead Eastern Flank Watch, an initiative to strengthen defences in frontline states that was announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in September.

Her announcement came just days after multiple Russian drones entered Polish airspace in an unprecedented violation of NATO and EU territory.

However, Politico Europe reports that Eastern Flank Watch and another European Commission proposal, the European Drone Defence Initiative, have received a “lukewarm reception” from France, Germany and Hungary, making it unclear if they will get EU backing.

At today’s summit, Tusk said that the eastern-flank states would seek to apply “political pressure” in order to obtain support for the initiatives, reports Euractiv.

“Europe finally understands that protection of our eastern border is our common responsibility,” declared Tusk in Helsinki. “It’s not just a national duty for Poland or Finland or Lithuania. It is a common European task and a common European responsibility.”

The Polish prime minister said that the eastern flank countries “understand each other perfectly,” having the shared experience of living alongside “very challenging neighbouring countries”. This means “common threats”, but also “common opportunities and common projects”, he added.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Poland has rapidly ramped up its defence spending to the highest relative level in NATO, at 4.5% of GDP this year.

It has also undertaken a geopolitical realignment, shifting away from its southern neighbours, such as Hungary and Slovakia, which are more friendly towards Russia, and towards the Nordic and Baltic states.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: KPRM/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.