Palace party, protests, patriots and prime-time television

Hello Insiders!

🇫🇮 It’s the morning after the night before… unless you were hiding under a rock on Friday you can’t help but notice it was Independence Day, when the Republic of Finland turned 107- years-old.

Finns love this stuff. The red carpet arrivals at the Palace is one of the most-watched TV broadcasts of the year, and a quick glance late on Friday night showed me that 9⃣ out of the top 🔟 most-read articles at the Helsingin Sanomat website were about Independence Day.

I first moved to Finland in autumn 1995 and watched my first Independence Day celebration on television that year when the country was a mere 78 years old. Time flies!

These days the shine has faded somewhat from the party at the Presidential Palace as far as I’m concerned. For many politicians and celebrities the seems to be more about who can out-spend the next person with expensive designer costumes, jewellery, an afternoon at the salon, a room at Hotel Kämp, room service and champagne, a photoshoot and all of it documented on social media. This is very much a display of Finland’s ‘haves’, versus Finland’s ‘have nots’.

You only have to dip your toes into social media to see what I’m talking about. And as for the legacy media on television or streaming online, with their red carpet lives, live commentary, live music, live dancing, live interviews, live analysis of who-wore-what… just about the only place they’ve not shoved a camera and microphone is in the toilets (but I bet they’re trying to figure out those logistics!)

Anyway, there was plenty of other news this week apart from Independence Day and the days leading up to it, so here we go (in no particular order!)

Inside the headlines

🚔 Protests. It used to be there were left-wing protests on Independence Day, demonstrating against the ostentatious display of wealth in the Palace. These days the trouble comes from the right wing (in all shapes and sizes), with the inevitable counter-protests and Helsinki Police say they arrested 41 people in connection with protests on Friday.

📚 Library. Supporters of the fascist Blue-Black movement held a reading event at Oodi Central Library in Helsinki on Friday. They’re banned from actually booking a room there because they’ve been struck off the register of political parties for being too extreme, and because they advocate racism, but there was (apparently) nothing the library could do to stop them coming in and hosting a pop-up reading event anyway. Many more counter-protesters showed up to drown them out and eventually, the Blue-Black folks exited the building.

612 march. On Friday evening the annual 612 march took place, from Töölöntori in Helsinki to Hietaniemi cemetery. The Helsinki Without Nazis group protested the march, whose organisers say is neither far-right nor neo-Nazi, just patriotic. Police made most of their arrests from among the ranks of the counter-protesters. At least one Finns Party MP took part in the 612 march, despite Prime Minister Petter Orpo highlighting the dangers of far-right radicalism. Finns Party leader Riikka Purra was unable to stop her MP from attending the event.

MP Teemu Keskisarja (Finns) addressed the 612 march in Helsinki on Friday evening:

📸 Pictures. Helsingin Sanomat has a photo gallery of Independence Day events called ‘Nazi salutes and evening dresses’ which pretty much sums up the day in a nutshell!

🎨 Culture. Thousands of people gathered at Oodi Central Library this week to protest against the government’s swingeing cuts to Finland’s cultural sector - with more cuts to come next year. More than 90,000 people have signed a petition to try and get the government to stop making cuts from subsidies for cultural activities, with €17 million expected to be lost in 2025.

Green MEP Maria Ohisalo was one of the opposition politicians who attended Thursday’s peaceful protest. “Cuts targeting the cultural sector are diluting our entire society and our future. Without culture we have nothing,” she said.

Counterpoint. A new survey this week by the Finnish Business and Policy Forum Eva finds that a majority (58%) of Finns think the country has too much debt, and more than half (52%) would continue to cut public spending. “In general, there is no discernible decline in Finns' willingness to make cuts compared to two years ago,” Eva’s research found.

❄️ Snow. European tour operator TUI cancelled a number of charter flights to Kuusamo in Lapland this week due to a lack of snow! Tourists hoping for a winter wonderland adventure in December would have been disappointed when they arrived to find the less-that-snowy conditions.

💰 Investment. The city of Imatra and the Norwegian company Norsk-e-Fuel have signed an agreement to build a new e-fuel plant on city land, which could create up to 140 jobs. The 20 hectare plot is in the immediate vicinity of the Ovako steel mill. The company's goal is to produce at least 80 tons of synthetic jet fuel annually in the region in order to meet the EU's renewable jet fuel goals.

🚔 Gangs. The spectre of crime gangs has been raised again after Helsingin Sanomat reported the main suspect in a murder in Espoo on Thursday had previously been charged with aggravated robbery with a knife when he was 16 years old.

The police have said they are investigating whether the case has any connections to street gangs and criminal networks.

Interior Minister Mari Rantanen (Finns) said there was “nothing new or surprising about this” and that Swedish crime gangs had long wanted to move their operational reach into Finland.

"This problem was identified in the government programme a year and a half ago. The government considers the matter very serious," Rantanen told HS.

🐺 Wolves. More than four decades of strict protection for grey wolves in Europe came to an end this week, after conservation officials adopted EU measures to downgrade the animal's protected status. Finland’s Environment Minister Kai Mykkänen (NCP) had previously welcomed the move.

⚽️ Football. The Finnish women’s national football team has made it through to the Euro 2025 tournament in Switzerland, after beating Scotland 2-0 in Helsinki on Tuesday.

Insider politics

🌍 Demarit. Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has a new chairman, Johannes Koskinen (SDP) who replaces Kimmo Kiljunen (SDP). Koskinen has served as Minister of Justice in previous governments, and was voted by the Social Democrats’ parliamentary group beating out Lahti’s former Minister for Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari, and ex-MEP Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, who were both also vying for the role.  

📊 Poll. The last political poll of 2024 from public broadcaster Yle finds the Social Democrats solidifying their lead on 24% (down slightly); while the National Coalition Party Kokoomus are unchanged on 18.8%. The Finns Party remains in third place but slipping down another 0.6 percentage points at 15.1%. The Centre Party is in fourth place with 13.1% no change since the last Yle poll a month ago.

The biggest winner in this poll was (somewhat inexplicably) the one-MP party of Hjallis Harkimo Liike Nyt (Movement Now) up 1.2%. While the biggest losers were the Swedish People’s Party down 0.7% support.

Sanna Marin. And speaking of the ex-PM, MTV Uutiset political reporter Alec Neihum snagged a rare domestic interview with her (she didn’t give any comments to the media at last year’s Independence Day event). Marin said she talked with current government ministers and the PM to ask them “how the government's work had been going, and it's tough being in government and handling domestic affairs," she told MTV.

"Although I have to admit that I disagree slightly with the current government on some policy content issues, I actively promote Finland's cause” when speaking abroad, Marin added.

Conscription. The Finnish Conscripts Union Varusmiesliitto is launching a new citizen’s initiative on 12 December to get parliament to discuss inclusive conscription for both men and women. “Despite the lack of a broad social debate, based on surveys, more than half of Finns support military conscription for the entire age group," says union president Elina Riutta. "The support among young people is even greater, and the topic must be tackled now."

I covered the issue of gender-equal conscription, and how Finland is marching out of step with its Nordic NATO allies, back in the spring. Read more here:

Finland international

🇫🇷 France. I hope President Stubb managed to get some sleep on the plane, because he’s in Paris on Saturday attending the re-opening of Notre Dame Cathedral, which was ravaged by fire five years ago. Of course embattled French President Emmanuel Macron will be there, as well as Britain’s Prince William and incoming US President Donald Trump too.

🇲🇹 OSCE. Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen attended the OSCE ministerial meeting in Malta this week, as did Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov - his first visit to an EU Member State since travel sanctions and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At a press conference afterwards, Valtonen said her Kremlin counterpart “couldn’t bear” to listen to any criticism of Russia and walked out.

"I haven't had the opportunity to shake hands or not shake hands with Lavrov, we've been moving in slightly different directions. He really didn't stay at that meeting very long, meaning he couldn't bear to listen to how a very large group of participating countries condemned not only Russia's actions but also this rather strange speech,” said Valtonen.

Finland takes over the chairmanship of the OSCE from Malta on 1 January 2025.

🇺🇦 Ukraine. The Ministry of Defence announced Finland’s 26th military aid package for Ukraine on Thursday. This latest package contains winter equipment for Ukrainian forces, and is valued at €25 million.

“Finland has now delivered defence materiel to Ukraine to a total value of €2.3 billion. This time the package contains winter equipment for Ukrainian troops, for example. Finland is one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters, and we have no plans to change that,” said Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen.

🇷🇴 Finland’s new EU Commissioner Henna Virkkunen has been outlining her concerns with the role of disinformation in the Romanian presidential election, saying there was “mounting indications of coordinated foreign online influence operations targeting ongoing Romanian elections, especially on TikTok.

🇮🇱 Israel. Yle Svenska has a must-read report out this week looking at Finland’s dependence on Israel as a source of military materiel, which concludes that “dependence on Israeli technology may continue for decades” and that the large military deals could become “politically embarrassing” for the Nordic nation.

🇨🇳🇷🇺 China/Russia. Only a week after a Chinese cargo vessel leaving from a Russian port appears to have severed two cables in the Baltic Sea - including one from Finland to Germany - top officials from the authoritarian regimes were meeting to discuss more Arctic shipping cooperation…

And finally…

🇫🇮 There were so many patriotic Independence Day-themed social media posts this week it was difficult to just pick one to share with you - lots of people got very creative with their content! But I’m a fan of Valtteri Bottas’ work. He’s quirky and he knows it, and this year he’s owned Instagram with his own brand of dead-pan Finnishness. Bravo!

Thank you, kiitos, tack

The end of this week’s Finland Insider newsletter is in sight, and so is the end of the year! Thanks for making it this far, and as usual if you have any story suggestions, scoops, news tips or ideas for the future direction of the newsletter then just reach out directly to me on [email protected] 

See you next Saturday,

David