Nicotine-gate, dirty ships, musical chairs and a new Finnish virus

Hello Insiders! 

It’s a late Sunday appearance for the Finland Insider newsletter this week because it turns out the weekend was a hotbed of political activity with a new leader of the Left Alliance voted, and a rare defection in parliament - as an MP from one party plays musical chairs and decides to sit with another party instead - so I waited to wrap everything up.

Coming up this week there’s also a very Finnish scandal over nicotine pouches, a state visit, a plane crash, bunkers for Ukraine and a tragic death that hit the news.

Inside the headlines

Crash. Accident investigators say it looks like the engine of a small plane stopped working before it plunged to the ground, killing two people on board. The crash happened were killed when a small plane crashed at Räyskälä Airport, between Riihimäki and Forssa.

Killed. A story which stayed in the headlines all week was the death of Janne Puhakka, a former professional ice hockey player who became the first in Finland to come out and talk about his life as a gay elite athlete. Puhakka (29) was killed on Sunday at the home in Espoo he had shared with his partner, Norwegian vet Rolf Nordmo (65) who has been arrested in connection with Puhakka’s death.

Puhakka was shot with a gun in what police say was a premeditated act, after the couple broke up a few weeks previously. In court this week, Nordmo’s lawyer said his client “is very upset and extremely sorry for the victim's relatives and loved ones.” Nordmo has admitted that he shot his ex-boyfriend, when Puhakka had come to pick up his belongings from the couple's shared house.

The former hockey player had become a role model to many people over his openness about his sexuality and his career, and was known for his positive engagement with LGBTQ campaigning in Finland.

A couple of years ago I interviewed Janne Puhakka, and wrote about it for Euronews. Here’s a link to the story:

Immigration. There’s another twist in the ongoing scandal-come-saga of immigration in Finland. Previously, Helsingin Sanomat reported that the government would try to reduce the number of quota refugees coming from Muslim countries. Now, Swedish People’s Party MP Eva Biaudet says her party will not agree to this if it means, for example, that Afghan women fleeing the Taliban would be excluded from the possibility of relocating to Finland.

Meanwhile Left Alliance MP Veronika Honkasalo has described the government’s plans as “extremely discriminatory” and says she understands that Finland will soon refuse to take men or boys from any country, and nobody at all from Muslim countries, meaning only Christian women and girls would be accepted.

“It is extremely worrying if these reports are true and the Finnish government is seeking to select refugees on such grounds. The policy is also completely contrary to the government's statement to Parliament on promoting equality, gender equality and non-discrimination,” says Honkasalo.

Banking. The National Bureau of Investigations is looking into a series of cyber attacks targeting Finnish banks. Nordea has been a particular target of denial of service attacks throughout the autumn.

Yle. A citizen’s initiative to cut funding for Yle and impose tighter restrictions on its operations is moving to parliament after passing the 50,000 signature threshold at the Kansalaisaaloite website. The initiative was launched by the youth groups of the Finns Party, Kokoomus and the Christian Democrats.

Ships. This seems like a no-brainer, but a new government proposal would mean that ships would be banned from emptying their toilets into Finnish territorial waters from next summer - even after the water has purified (it’s already illegal to empty unfiltered toilets into the Baltic Sea). That ban would extend between 4 and 12 nautical miles from shore. The government would go further and ban the emptying of grey water from ships (water from showers, kitchens and washing machines) into Finnish waters from 2030.

Virus. Scientists have christened a new virus “Jyvaskylavirus” because it was the first giant virus isolated from Finland. It was discovered in a decomposing soil sample in Jyväskylä and you can read more about it here.

Inside politics

Left. The Left Alliance has a new leader. Minja Kosekela won two-thirds of the votes from party members - but less than half the members bothered to cast a ballot. Koskela is a first-term MP representing Helsinki, and studied at the Sibelius Academy.

Farewell. In her goodbye speech to party members, outgoing Left Alliance leader Li Andersson MEP took a swipe at the Finn Party’s leader Rikka Purra, lumping her in with Donald Trump and Argentina’s Javier Milei, and other "fascist and far-right movements.”

Nicotine-gate. A very Finnish political scandal erupted this week over nicotine pouches. MEP and former Swedish People’s Party leader Anna-Maja Henriksson was forced to deny that she’d played any undue influence over government rules on flavoured nicotine pouches.

The government has been trying to make addictive nicotine products less attractive to young people, and so it banned a number of flavours. But it turns out that some flavours including rosemary, tea, ginger and wood flavours are exempt from the ban and - what a coincidence - just happen to be the same flavours made by a nicotine pouch manufacturer in Anna-Maja Henriksson’s home town of Jakobstad.

Henriksson says the manufacturer had given a list of its flavours to the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, and it was felt that if only menthol and mint flavours were allowed, then people would simply buy other flavours from Sweden, and the tax revenues would go there instead.

Poll. The latest political poll in Helsingin Sanomat this week is good news for the Social Democrats Demarit, and bad news for the National Coalition Party Kokoomus.

It shows the Social Democrats extending their lead as Finland’s most popular political party with 22.8% support - the party’s highest level of support since 2016 when Antti Rinne was prime minister. Kokoomus is losing support however, down to 19.4%. The combined support of the government coalition parties - Kokoomus, Finns Party, Christian Democrats and Swedish People’s Party - remains below 50% and is down six percentage points since last year’s general election.

Defection. Oulu MP Pekka Aittakumpu has defected from the Centre Party to the Finns Party. Aittakumpu has been a Centre Party MP since 2019 and is a Lutheran priest. He cites issues around defence of the Finnish language, and sexual minorities, as his reasons for the move but a rather… ummm… xenophobic/racist post on social media from earlier this month might give more of a clue about where his values lie, and they don’t seem very Christian:

“Every member of parliament should visit, for example, Itäkeskus [a large shopping centre in eastern Helsinki]. I visited there. It is said that the rest of Finland follows Helsinki and comes after it. If you see the future in Itäkeskus, I think we will have minarets instead of churches and sharia law instead of democracy.” - Pekka Aittakumpu, X, 4 October 2024.

Sick leave. Social Democrat MP Ville Merinen is taking sick leave from his job in parliament, calling it “the sickest work community I have ever been in.” The former psychotherapist wrote on social media that he would become ill with exhaustion or depression if things continued the way they were going, and he didn’t take time off to look after his own mental health.

Confidence. The government won a vote of confidence this week 100-77 (with 22 absences) which had been called by the opposition over plans to link wages to exports.

Mayor. Finns Party MP Wille Rydman, who was previously a Kokoomus MP and city councillor, and who has been hit by repeated allegations that he groomed under-age girls for sex, says he will run to be the far-right party’s candidate for Mayor of Helsinki in next year’s municipal elections.

Espoo. The Kokoomus group in Espoo city council will vote for a new mayor of Finland’s second-largest city on Monday evening. Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Kai Mykkänen is a strong contender but faces a challenge from Mervi Katainen.

Finland international

The conflict in Ukraine has been back on top of the foreign policy agenda this week, as well as the ongoing fighting in the Middle East.

Brussels. Speaking on arrival in Brussels for a meeting of EU leaders this week, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo re-stated Finland’s strong support for Ukraine saying: “We cannot forget Ukraine. Ukraine is at a crucial point in the war of Russian aggression […] we have to give a strong signal, and a unified signal, that we continue to support Ukraine as much and as long as needed.”

Fatigue. Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen has warned of ‘war fatigue’ and said that conflict in the Middle East was drawing attention away from Ukraine.

“These two conflicts are, of course, very much linked, but for us Europeans it would be important to realise that if we allow Russia to win in Ukraine, then essentially we end the credibility of our deterrence.”

Shelters. Ukraine’s PM has been visiting an underground shelter in Helsinki over the weekend, something he thinks his country should be building as part of its civil defence plan.

Lebanon. Minister of Defence Antti Häkkänen (NCP) says that Israeli military strike on United Nations peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon might have been deliberate. There are around 200 Finnish peacekeepers taking part in the UNIFIL operation. Finland joined other countries to condemn Israel’s attacks on peacekeepers, saying “such actions should stop immediately.” Previously, Häkkänen called Israel’s actions “completely reprehensible and illegal.”

Budget. And Häkkäanen also told a meeting of defence ministers in Brussels on Friday that he didn’t think a 2% budget spend on defence/military for NATO member countries would be enough in future, and that it would have to be more.

Israel. At a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg this week, FM Elina Valtonen said the EU should consider imposing more sanctions against Israel, saying “we must take clear action against Israel.”

Norway. President Stubb and his wife have been on a State Visit to Norway this week, cue lots of colourful photographs with Norwegian royalty:

And finally…

Autumn is mushroom-gathering season in Finland, and the folks at This Is Finland show us how to go from forest to table with delicious chanterelle mushrooms:

Thank you, kiitos, tack! 

That’s it for this week’s late edition of Finland Insider. Barring any big weekend political stories everything should be back on track for the usual Friday delivery next week.

As usual, if you have any story ideas, scoops, or areas you’d like me to look at please feel free to get in touch directly by email at [email protected] 

Bye for now,

David