Market security, Christmas racism, winter weather and Santa Claus

Hello Insiders! Today marks the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year when Lapland is in the middle of Polar Night - kaamos - and the sun doesn’t rise or set… and in Helsinki in the south there’s less than six hours between sunrise and sunset.

After this, it’s basically a headlong rush towards Midsummer! But first there’s Christmas and New Year to get through and if you’ve still got last-minute 🎁 gifts to buy (like me) then may the force be with you as you battle your fellow shoppers!

It’s an absolute bumper edition of the newsletter this week, a Christmas bonus for everyone who wants to sit down in front of a roaring log fire and catch up with all the biggest stories of the week, plus some other stories you might have missed along the way.

Coming up: a look at Finland’s new strategic defence review; an immigration statistics snafu; a narrow healthcare win for the government; more Lapland misadventures; a world-beating sports team, and the chances of a white Christmas in the capital examined.

All that still to come, but first this:

Inside the headlines

Christmas markets. Security is being stepped up at some Finnish Christmas markets, after an attack at a market in Germany on Friday evening left at least five people dead and 200 others injured, according to authorities.

Prime Minister Petteri Orpo was among those who expressed his support for the people in Magdeburg:

In Finland, Christmas market season is of course in full swing. "We are now urgently assessing the safety of these markets and considering whether the measures should be made more efficient in some way," Stuba Nikula, organiser of the market in Helsinki’s Senate Square told Hesari. In addition to the organising company, there is private security, the City of Helsinki rescue department and Helsinki Police who have responsibility to ensure the safety of people at the market.

In Oulu the Tiernatori Christmas Market is already held on a street which is not accessible to cars, reports Iltalehti.

🕯 Racism. This week has been dominated by the racism scandal which engulfed Daniela Owusu, who was crowned as Finland’s Lucia this year. [What is Santa Lucia? It’s a religious festival in December where girls in their late teens or early twenties vie to become the ‘Lucia’ at a ceremony which lights up the winter darkness, and is particularly associated with Swedish-speaking Finns. More here.]

Owusu, 20, was born in Finland to a Finnish mother and Ghanaian father and became the first person of colour to be crowned Lucia. In the days afterwards, she received thousands of abusive messages online, many of them threatening and racist. She also got an outpouring of support from politicians, the president and the public. The police and Ombudsman are investigating some of the posts - and one positive outcome of this week is that the charity organisation which arranges the Lucia festivities every year has received a surge in donations which will go towards helping less fortunate families over the holiday period.

☎️ One of my favourite pieces of journalism this week was from Ilta-Sanomat reporter Joonas Immonen who decided to call some of the people who left abusive messages for Daniela Owusu and confront them about it. Some people said their words had been misconstrued, and they were definitely not racist at all. But, refreshingly, one man agreed when Joonas asked if his comments make him a racist and ethnonationalist: “Yes. Otherwise I wouldn't have written a comment. I am completely against the fact that thousands of people who are originally from Africa or the Middle East are allowed to come here. That is not a good thing.”

Criticism. The Speaker of Parliament Jussi Halla-aho (Finns) came in for criticism when he demanded that MP Fatim Diarra (Green) hand over a note she received which contained racist abuse (note: no surprise here, I first interviewed Fatim about racist political abuse she regularly receives, back in 2019 before she was even elected to parliament!) It seems that Halla-aho wanted to somehow verify that the note was genuine (and presumably not just something Diarra made up) because he said he’d received reports that the message was fake. Diarra of course gave him the note, the contents of which are as vile as you might expect (she had shared them on social media previously).

Halla-aho’s attitude came in for criticism, with veteran political commentator Timo Haapala branding him ‘parliament’s little detective’ and saying he “makes a mockery of the institution of the Speaker with his accusations.”

🔫 Defence. This week Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen (NCP) published the long-awaited new national defence review. The last one was published in 2021, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and says that war is the biggest single threat facing Finland today.

The report cautions that the operational environment of Finland's defence is unstable and difficult to predict, and the security situation can deteriorate rapidly.

“The years ahead will be strongly characterised by preparedness. We will continue to strengthen Finland’s defence. This will be based on four pillars: homeland defence capability, NATO’s deterrence and defence, defence cooperation, and total defence,” says Häkkänen.

The new report states clearly that Russia has moved towards a more open, unpredictable and protracted confrontation with the West, and will continue to pose a long-term security threat to Finland - although it concludes that being a part of NATO has increased deterrence.

“We will strengthen Finland’s ability to counter broad-spectrum influencing, resist military pressure and fight potential large-scale wars that could drag on for years. We will reform national defence while also bringing the major ongoing projects in our Air Force and Navy to the finish line,” says Häkkänen.

📉 Immigration. A forecast published by Statistics Finland in October estimated that there would be a net migration of 40,000 people to Finland in the coming years, if migration remained at the level of recent years. But this week the Ministry of Finance is revising that figure downwards to 25,000 per year.

📚 Education. A new international report out this week finds that Finnish adults score the highest in literacy, maths, and problem-solving compared with other OECD countries. Torille?

🇸🇬🇨🇳 Lapland crash. Two people in a van were killed in Lapland on Thursday, when it collided with a bus carrying dozens of tourists from Singapore and China.

💰 Taxes. According to the Finnish Business and Policy Forum Eva, taxes are about to get higher, especially for the middle class. “The average wage earner will pay more tax on their income […] than at any time in the last ten year,” the new Eva

❄️ White Christmas? While there’s going to be snow in some parts of the country next week, it seems there won’t be a White Christmas in the capital for the first time in four years, according to meteorologist Mika Rantanen.

🌧 Weather woes. Those ‘snowless Lapland’ stories are still doing the rounds in the British press. This week a family in England told the BBC they’d spent their life savings on a winter wonderland holiday to Lapland only to find it far from wintry.

🧝‍♀️ Elf. A woman from England has moved to Lapland to work as one of Santa’s elves. This is the Brexit we voted for!

🏑 Salibandy. The Finnish men’s floorball team won gold at the Salibandy World Championships in Sweden this week, beating the hosts in the final.

Insider politics

💶 Budget. Parliament voted and approved all the main budget lines for 2025. At the end of a mammoth session, there was a vote of confidence in the government which it easily won 97-70. The Finance Committee's proposal for the state budget for 2025 is approximately €89.2 billion, which is approximately €1.3 billion more than the 2024 budget actually turned out to be.

⚕️ Healthcare. The government also survived a small rebellion this week to win a vote on reforming healthcare regions which means closing a number of 24 hour services, mostly in rural areas. With two government MPs absent, and five voting against, the government still won the overall vote 101-96.

Experts. Finns Party MP Antti Kangas arranged for a company where he’s the co-owner, and an organisation it runs, to be invited to give evidence before a parliamentary committee. As Long Play reports this week, the company could be in line for some lucrative government contracts, and Kangas was ‘less-than-transparent’ about his connection to the company or the organisation. It’s a tangled web we weave…

Krista Kiuru. An update on a big news story from last week: a man has been arrested by police in connection with an alleged assault on Social Democrat MP Krista Kiuru, which I wrote about in last week’s newsletter. Police say that the suspect told them he had been “behaving in a disturbing manner” ahead of the incident, and he thought Kiuru was on the phone reporting him to police.

Paavo Väyrynen. Long-time Centre Party politician Paavo Väyrynen also reported to police that he was assaulted in Helsinki on Independence Day. Värynen, who has been foreign minister, and is a three-time presidential candidate, said he was walking home from the barber shop at 11am when someone shoved him to the ground. At first he did not report the incident, but in light of what happened to Krista Kiuru, Väyrynen says he decided to come forward.

Finland international

🌍 Foreign friends. Prime Minister Petteri Orpo is hosting a group of like-minded right-wing leaders in the Lapland resort town of Saariselkä this weekend. It’s the revival of an event that Alex Stubb hosted at least twice when he was PM, a sort of informal opportunity to play the role of statesman and have cosy fireside chats (and photo opportunities) with foreign leaders. On the guest list this year are Swedish PM Ulf Kristersson, Greek PM Kyriakos Misotakis, ex-Estonian PM Kaja Kallas (who is now the EU’s foreign minister) and Italian PM Giorgia Meloni whose party can trace its recent history to Italy’s fascist movement (Fun fact: Meloni was a member of a neo-fascist youth group in the early 1990s!)

🇺🇸 USA. The foreign ministry announced this week that Finland will open a new consulate in the US city of Houston in 2025. “The United States is a strategic ally, and its economic importance is crucial for Finland. Texas is the second largest state in the United States and its GDP is among the 10th largest in the world,” says Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen.

“Disruptive technologies, aerospace, digital services, energy solutions, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, etc. The potential is huge and Finnish companies have a strong offer for extensive partnerships. Join us in building a success story!”

It probably doesn’t hurt that the next generation of fighter jets that Finland is paying €10 billion for, are being made partly in Houston.

🇬🇪 Georgia. Finland joined other OSCE countries this week to raise a formal protest about the erosion of democracy and rights in Georgia:

🇫🇮 OSCE. A reminder that Finland takes over the rotating presidency of the OSCE on 1 January 2025.

🇷🇺 Russia. A district court in Helsinki recently dealt the Kremlin a blow that could mean more than 30-million euros worth of Russian assets in Finland are sold to benefit Ukraine, German media outlet DW reports this week.

💣 Landmines. Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen confirmed this week that Finland is actively considering pulling out of an international agreement banning anti-personnel landmines because of Russia's use of such weapons in Ukraine, reports Reuters. A Citizen’s Initiative calling on Finland to quit the 1997 Ottawa Treaty reached 50,000 signatures within just a few days of launching earlier in December, and could now be considered by parliament.

🇷🇺🇨🇳 Baltic Sea cable. Finnish and Swedish police were invited on board a Chinese ship in the Baltic Sea on Thursday, in order to observe a probe being carried out by Beijing on how two undersea cables - one linking Finland with Germany - were cut in November. Suspicion has fallen upon the Chinese vessel Yi Peng 3, with the Wall Street Journal claiming the ship carried out the act of sabotage at the behest of the Russians - something President Alex Stubb has been quick to play down, saying it was “terribly difficult” to agree with the WSJ, based on the information he had.

🇪🇪 JEF. President Stubb was in Tallinn this week for a meeting of the Joint Expeditionary Force JEF, which is a military alliance of ten northern European countries led by the UK. Military personnel from JEF members recently completed a major battle exercise in Latvia.

And finally…

Christmas Film. After I send this newsletter out I think I’ll settle down on the couch to watch a Christmas movie - and now Hallmark has the perfect option called “The Finnish Line” which has been described as “a thoroughly unexpected and surprisingly hilarious gem” and is partly shot in Rovaniemi, featuring husky sled racing. And hopefully romance and Finnish cliches too! Here’s a preview if you want to check it out:

Thank you, kiitos, tack

That’s all for an absolutely bumper Christmas edition of Finland Insider. Thanks for reading this far and for supporting the newsletter throughout the year. If you have any tips, story ideas or content suggestions feel free to drop me an email directly at [email protected] 

I’m back next Saturday in between Christmas and New Year with another newsletter update, until then Hyvää joulua, God Jul, Merry Christmas - here’s a festive picture of me and Santa Claus when I visited Rovaniemi in the middle of July a few years ago!

David 🎅