Finland plans to sign up to the Ottawa Treaty banning infantry land mines in four years. The treaty obliges signatories to give up the weapons within four years of signing the treaty.
Giving up the mines was originally expected to add up to half a billion euros a year in extra costs. Now just 200 million has been earmarked for the whole eight-year transitional period.
Colonel Jukka Sonninen of the Finnish Army staff promises that the planned funding will be enough to introduce technology to replace the mines.
The UN estimates that 100 million mines are hidden in different parts of the world. The mines kill thousands of people a year, inflicting the worst casualties among civilians.
