Finland’s new president Alexander Stubb says the Nordic country enters ‘a new era’ as a NATO member

HELSINKI — Alexander Stubb was sworn in Friday as Finland’s new president and said that the Nordic country “is facing a new era” after becoming a NATO member — something he will demonstrate by making his first foreign trip to inspect the military alliance’s drill in neighboring Norway’s Arctic region. “If someone had told me two years ago that the president of Finland would make his first working visit to NATO exercises a week after his inauguration, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Stubb told reporters at a news conference in the seaside Presidential Palace in Helsinki following inauguration ceremonies. Stubb said in his speech to lawmakers that “as a result of allying ourselves militarily and joining NATO, we have taken the final step into the Western community of values” to which Finland has belonged “in spirit throughout its independence.” The president of Finland, a nation of 5.6 million people, holds executive power in formulating foreign and security policy together with the government. “ Stubb said that as Finland’s new head of state, “I will do my best to make sure that conflicts are translated into competition, and that this competition provides genuine opportunities for cooperation.” Stubb is expected to remain above the fray of day-to-day politics and stay out of domestic political disputes while acting as a moral leader of the nation.