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Euro election aftermath, underage allegations and green pizza

Week 24

Author

David Mac Dougall
June 14, 2024

Hello Insiders!

A lot of the news this week in Finland has been about the aftermath of the European Parliament election which took place last Sunday. Parties, politicians and pundits have been discussing what went right or wrong with various campaigns, as the new MEPs started arriving already in Brussels.

I’ll break down all the most important things to know about the election, plus we’re diving into yet another scandal about a Finns Party MP (or should I say, it’s more of the same) and wondering whether his party will protect him again against parliamentary censure.

Also this week there’s more government cuts starting to bite, news about green pizzas, and foreign praise for Finland in NATO - you know how much Finns love it when a foreigner says something positive about the country! I remember waiting to see Rihanna play at a festival in Helsinki and she was so late the crowd were getting angry, but as soon as she turned up and said “Moi Helsinki” she had the crowd eating out of her hand: “Foreigner singer speak Finnish word!” etc.

All that is still to come, but first this:

Inside the headlines

Stabbing. A 33-year-old man with a long history of being involved with extreme far-right and neo-Nazi groups has been arrested by police in Oulu, after a 12-year-old child with a foreign or immigrant background was stabbed several times in the back on Thursday. The suspect has been named by Finnish media as Juhani Sebastian Lämsä, and he’s already been convicted for a 2013 stabbing at a library in Jyväskylä, and a 2012 pepper spray attack on a Left Alliance politician.

Finland Insider’s take: Surely nobody would try to make political capital over the stabbing of a child, especially before they knew all the facts of the case? Wrong! Riikka Purra, the leader of the far-right Finns Party, already started shooting off her mouth by falsely impying the suspect was involved in street gangs: "In the middle of the day, in the middle of the shopping centre, the stabbing of a young person. I hope the victim survives. With street crime, gangs, etc., unfortunately, the same development is being followed as in other countries.”

Here’s what you should know, this ‘we don’t want Finland to be like other countries’ is far-right code for ‘we think Sweden got immigration wrong and is now overrun by immigrant crime gangs and only we can stop it happening in Finland’. It’s a trope the Finnish right brings up a lot and when you know it, you’ll start to notice their oblique (and not so oblique) references to ‘things that happen in other countries’ popping up routinely. By Friday morning, Purra had conceded that “the perpetrator has a background in the far-right movement”.

Environment. Police in Helsinki detained 137 climate activists who held a protest and blocked traffic in the capital earlier this week. They were later released.

Algae. The Finnish Environment Institute SYKE is warning about blue-green algae blooms in open water areas near the Finnish coast. “This summer, the risk of the formation of rafts of blue-green algae is considerable in the northern part of the main basin of the Baltic Sea, in the Gulf of Finland, the Archipelago Sea and in a large part of the Bothnian Sea,” SYKE says in a press release. The extent of algae rafts is affected by the temperature and wind conditions of the summer.

Cuts. Another round of government budget cuts has started to bite, and hit the headlines this week. Social security agency KELA has to find €45 million in savings, with the chairman of the board calling it “the biggest cuts to Kela's operating expenses in decades.”

Meanwhile the Foreign Ministry announced it would cut its funding for Finnwatch, a non-governmental organisation which monitors the human rights impact of Finnish companies abroad. However a crowd-funding campaign raised €90,000 in just a few days to cover the immediate budgetary shortfall for Finnwatch - although that model is not likely to be sustainable in the long run.

And another cut at the Foreign Ministry, as its print magazine dedicated to Finland’s international development work has been shuttered.

Booze. After changes to Finland’s strict alcohol sales laws, stronger products are now on sale in supermarkets up to 8% alcohol. Kippis!

Equality. A new survey out this week found a majority of Finns want gender-equal conscription. That’s something we wrote about last month, catch up here:

Finland "falling behind" Nordic NATO members on conscription

The Finnish Defence Forces will need to broaden their conscription base in future years, experts say

finlandinsider-newsletter-d0207f.beehiiv.com/p/finland-falling-behind-gender-equal-conscription

Protest. Helsinki University authorities called in police to help clear away a pro-Palestinian encampment this week, saying it was causing disruption and that there has been acts of vandalism. The camp was set up last month to pressure the university to live up to its own ethical standards and cut ties with Israeli universities over ‘scholasticide’ in Gaza - where almost every university or college has been destroyed or badly damaged by Israeli forces in recent months.

Helsinki University has already agreed to suspend student exchange programmes but activists say they should be doing a lot more. Here’s the Insider Original story from a few weeks ago about the Palestinian protesters at Finnish universities:

Inside the Palestine solidarity campaign at Finland’s universities

Activists have been calling for Finnish institutions to cut ties with Israeli universities

finlandinsider-newsletter-d0207f.beehiiv.com/p/inside-palestine-solidarity-campaign-finland-universities

Green pizza. Do Finns care about the environmental impact or the carbon footprint of their pizza? Home-grown restaurant chain Kotipizza reckons the answer is no. This week Kotipizza revealed their online ‘Climate Calculator’ is used so infrequently they’ve come to the conclusion “that consumers are currently more appreciative of delicious and high-quality pizza” than knowing its environmental credentials. Buon appetito!

Inside politics

Spending. Wondered how much money Finnish political parties spent on their European Parliament election campaign? Someone more mathematically literate than me has crunched the numbers and found that the Finns Party spent more than €5 per vote they received, while the thrifty Left Alliance spent just €0.69 per vote they received. (Caveat: The figures are based on preliminary spending as reported, and don’t yet include the amount of money candidates spent individually on their own campaigns).

Reminder. In case you missed it, here’s the Insider Original story with 5 things you need to know about the results of the European Parliament election in Finland:

Winners and losers: 5 things we learned from the European Parliament election result in Finland

There were 15 seats up for grabs and results defied polling predictions

finlandinsider-newsletter-d0207f.beehiiv.com/p/european-parliament-election-finland-winners-losers

Post-mortem. The Social Democrats’ Mikkel Näkkäläjärvi says he thinks the runaway popularity of Left Alliance leader Li Andersson in the European Parliament election is why his party didn’t do as well as they hoped.

Finland Insider’s take: Yes, the Social Democrats were predicted to get one more MEP seat in the polls but it’s not much of a surprise that they didn’t because their campaign wasn’t particularly inspiring (like their presidential campaign, I barely even remember who the candidate was now, since she joined the race at the last possible minute and party activists were carrying a cardboard cutout of her around the country for months…) Demarit have to show they can reach new voters with exciting policies before they will start to solidify their predicted poll gains.

No confidence vote. The Left Alliance, Social Democrats and Greens have tabled a vote of no confidence for next week in Finns Party MP Wille Rydman. More details have come out this week about the minister for economic affairs’ interactions with young people (including from an underage boy who describes taking two underage girls back to Rydman’s apartment). Rydman denies allegations that he has groomed young girls for sex.

Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has already said that Rydman would not be a cabinet minister if he was still with Kokoomus. Rydman was appointed to his position by the Finns Party, with Orpo apparently powerless to do anything about it…

Resign. A number of political and youth groups have signed a letter calling on Minister Rydman to resign from government “for the sake of a political environment free from harassment.”

Nationalism. It has emerged this week that a Finns Party MP spoke at an event organised by two ethno-nationalist groups. Teemu Keskisarja addressed the Suomen Sisu / Kansallinen Akseli event at Töölö library in early June. The group discussed infamous neo-Nazi leaders in Finland and the ‘great replacement theory’ (sic) conspiracy theory, according to media reports.

Finland Insider’s take: At this point we’re all aware that the government’s so-called ‘zero tolerance’ to racism is an absolute sham and not worth the price of the paper it’s printed on, right? There have been so many examples of racist discussions, writings and promulgating racist conspiracy theories from Finns Party MPs, activists and members that there are almost too many to catalogue. But Petteri Orpo repeatedly does nothing about it. I don’t think he’s a racist himself, but he just doesn’t care if the people he’s chosen as his allies are.

Conferences. The National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) is holding its summer conference in Tampere this weekend, while the Centre Party (Keskusta) is holding its summer conference in Jyväskylä where delegates will vote for a new leader.

Finland international

Palestine. New polling from Keskisuomalainen finds that eight out of nine parliamentary political parties are in favour of recognising an independent state of Palestine. Only the Christian Democrats objected.

Air space. At least four Russian military aircraft violated Finnish airspace this week. The two bombers and two fighters ventured some 2.5km inside Finnish territory near the coastal town of Loviisa for about two minutes on Monday. The minister of defence says an investigation has been launched. Video released by the Russians appears to show a Finnish Hornet flying to intercept the Russian aircraft.

Ukraine. It’s always good to reaffirm support for Ukraine, as Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen (Kok) did this week at a NATO meeting in Brussels. Häkkänen also says he believes there will be a NATO HQ in Finland - something which has since been confirmed - and NATO ground troops based here.

Poland. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski is warning that Finland faces a new threat from Russia, in the form of teams of arsonists which Moscow has allegedly already sent to other European countries to commit acts of sabotage.

Baltic Sea. Foreign ministers from countries around the Baltic Sea have been meeting in Porvoo. “The Baltic Sea is facing increasingly complex threats, so it is important that the region’s democratic countries meet to discuss topical issues,” says Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen (Kok).

Praise. Dutch PM Mark Rutte visited Finland on Thursday, where he was speaking at President Stubb’s Kultaranta discussion days. Rutte, the frontrunner to be the next NATO Secretary General, said "Finland is Russia's border neighbour with a strong army, modern equipment and people who are ready to defend their country," Helsingin Sanomat reports, saying that Rutte described Finland as a "real asset" for NATO.

Thank you, kiitos, tack!

That’s the end of the Week 24 newsletter, hope you enjoyed the contents. I’ve enjoyed getting feedback from quite a few subscribers, and some suggestions have already been reflected over the last month to make Finland Insider a better product.

If you have a suggestion about something you liked or didn’t like, or want to suggest a story idea or news tip then please get in touch with me directly: [email protected] 

See you next Friday for a Juhannus special!

David