Political reshuffle, Sanna's stalker, Eurovision sour note and a tennis victory Down Under

Hello Insiders!

Welcome to another weekend, another Finland Insider newsletter! As usual, it’s packed with what I hope you’ll agree are the biggest and most interesting stories hitting the headlines - and I hope you’ll also find some other stories that perhaps went unnoticed and now grab your attention.

Coming up there’s a government game of musical chairs; more chilling details about Sanna Marin’s stalker; a tennis victory and a Eurovision sour note; good and bad news for the economy; a report on Russia’s malign information campaign in Finland; an opposition plan to boost jobs; some political jostling ahead of spring elections; a new football manager, and the return of a goat.

All that is still ahead, but first a closer look at the ongoing mystery surrounding the apparent sabotage of cables in the Baltic Sea, and a shift in the narrative of who might be responsible.

Inside the headlines

🌊 Baltic Sea sabotage. The mystery surrounding the 🇨🇰 Cook Islands-registered vessel Eagle S continued this week with a new storyline emerging. Finnish investigators are still looking at how the tanker (which is impounded near Porvoo) could have dragged its anchor dozens of kilometres without the crew being aware, as it severed crucial sub-sea infrastructure.

This week a Washington Post article, followed by articles in Norwegian media and in Helsingin Sanomat, quoted anonymous intelligence sources saying they’re not sure that they’ll find conclusive proof that the act was intentional, nor that Russia specifically ordered the crew to do it.

That’s a bit of a sea change in position, but okay: experts argue that it doesn’t matter whether the cable was cut on purpose or by accident, just that it was cut and therefore was vulnerable. And it doesn’t matter whether the blame is specifically placed on Moscow or not, it’s enough to know that the Eagle S damaged the cable and as a result, NATO has stepped up its naval presence in the Baltic Sea and so Russia got the message loud and clear.

🎵 Eurovision. Finnish band One Morning Left has been disqualified from this year’s UMK competition by public broadcaster Yle. The group had a song called Puppy entered in the contest to choose this year’s Eurovision entry but Yle says they’ve been disqualified for a breach in the rules. Reports online suggest one of the band members may have sent inappropriate messages to an underage person back in 2010.

📈 Economy. The International Monetary Fund says that Finland’s economy is set to rebound with a 1.5% growth rate in 2025, and a stronger employment market.

🦠️ COVID. Results of a study out this week showed that COVID-era subsidies saved more than 40,000 jobs in the first year of the pandemic, during Sanna Marin’s government. The study was published this week by Etla, the Finnish Economic & Research Institute, and found the majority of jobs were preserved with the help of Business Finland’s COVID disruption funding scheme.

📺 Cuts. Public broadcaster Yle will slash 10% of its workforce, after months of negotiations on job cuts. The number includes 156 redundancies, while another 153 positions will be cut through retirements and other personnel changes. Older employees were offered retirement incentives during the negotiations. The ruling National Coalition Party and its far-right junior partner the Finns Party had both been pushing for extensive cuts, with the Finns in particular leading the charge last summer amplifying issues they tried (with some success) to turn into scandals, for example about diversity and equality training - a subject which is a complete anathema to the Finns Party.

💰 Fraud. A new survey by the entrepreneur organisation Yrittäjät finds that more than a third of Finnish small and medium-sized companies have been the target of fraud.

“The most significant losses are incurred by companies in industry, construction and trade. For example, 9% of these companies that have been the target of fraud have lost more than €10,000 to criminals,” says Niko Nurmela from the Federation of Finnish Enterprises. 

🪦 Veteran. Finland’s oldest war veteran has died at the age of 108. Arvi Hämäläinen was born in 1917 on the Karelian Isthmus, and joined the military at the age of 21 just before the start of the Winter War where he was deployed as a rangefinder for artillery fire control on the Taipaleenjoki River. He served for seven years, and had lived in Valkeakoski since the early 1950s.

🎾 Tennis. Finnish tennis ace Harri Heliövaara has won the Australian Open with his partner Henry Patten in the men’s doubles. The pair defeated Italians Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori on Saturday, winning 6-7 (16-18) 7-6 (7-5) 6-3.

Iltalehti reports that Heliävaara and Patten - who are the current reigning Wimbledon men’s doubles champions - will split €487,000 victory money between them.

️⚽️ Football. The men’s national football team got a new manager this week with the appointment of Dane Jacob Friis as the new Huuhkajat - Eagle Owls - boss. The 48-year-old takes over from Markku Kanerva who was let go after eight years in charge, and a run of poor performances.

🐐 GOAT. And one of Finland’s greatest-ever football players Teemu Pukku - nicknamed the GOAT - is back playing on home soil after signing a two-year contract to join his old Helsinki side HJK from Minnesota United in the US.

Insider politics

🚔 Stalker. More details have emerged about a man accused of stalking former Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP). According to Helsinki District Court, the 36-year-old man knocked on the door of Marin’s home on Christmas Eve, rang the doorbell and tried to open the door. He spoke from behind the door and kissed the peephole lens.

Police arrested the man in the stairwell of Marin’s building. He denies stalking her and says he was just in the neighbourhood admiring the architecture, and looking for a local shop. Earlier this month Marin was granted a one-year extension to a restraining order against the man, who is a Turkish national.

Austerity. A new poll for Helsingin Sanomat out Sunday finds that more than half of Finns believe the government’s austerity measures are wrong. About a third thought the austerity measures were right; while 14% were undecided. Supporters of the National Coalition Party and the Finns Party considered the wide-ranging cuts to budgets including social security, civil society, and virtually every other state function to be right; while the left-wing opposition considered them wrong.

Editorial. In Sunday’s editorial, Hesari concludes that the coalition government needs a bit of a course correction in the coming weeks, with municipal and regional healthcare elections looming. The Finns Party in particular, says HS, will be looking to find some way to rally its voters and stop a long slow decline in poll numbers:

Ministerial shuffle. The government played a game of ministerial musical chairs this week with the National Coalition Party appointing Mari-Leena Talvitie as Minister of Science and Culture; while Sari Multala becomes the new Minister of Environment and Climate as Kai Mykkänen heads off to be the new mayor of Finland’s second largest city, Espoo.

More changes. And just as a heads up, there are more ministerial changes in the coming months as part of pre-determined job splits. So Wille Rydman (Finns) will be replaced as Minister of Economic Affairs by Sakari Puisto (Finns); Minister of Labour Arto Satonen (NCP) will be replaced by Matias Marttinen (NCP); and the Minister of Sport and Youth Sandra Bergqvist (SFP) will be replaced by Mika Poutala (CD).

New MP. The departure of Kai Mykkänen to be Mayor of Espoo left an opening for a new Kokoomus MP to ascend to parliament. The new MP is Henrik Vuornos who has worked as an adviser to the PM, and most recently as the head of the Kokoomus council group in Espoo.

Turku. Vandals smashed the window at the Finns Party office in Turku on Monday evening. Party officials said large stones were found in the street in front of the office on Tuesday morning and a sticker with the word ‘rasistipellet’ - racist clowns - was found on the door. The damage has been reported to the police.

Economic plan. The Left Alliance published its own 10-point plan this week to improve employment and the quality of working life. The program, they say, is a response to Finland's current challenges, such as growing unemployment, weak labor productivity, and the weakening status of workers.

“The Left Alliance believes that decision-making must respond to changes in working life and society and not look back to the past, as the Orpo and Purra government is doing,” said party leader Minja Koskela.

And how’s this for a cracking quote? “The government is acting in the labour market like a drunk with a cigarette - it provokes a fight, even though no one wants to fight.”

Transparency. The Social Democrats are calling for more transparency in politics, and want to see changes in the law that would require all election candidates to reveal where their funding comes from. Currently, the legal obligation to show funding sources only applies to successful candidates (and their alternates) in municipal, regional, parliamentary and European Parliament elections, and Demarit says it should be extended to everyone who runs for office.

“Campaign costs have risen dramatically over the years. For the sake of democracy, it is justified to find out extensively how candidates finance their campaigns. It is noteworthy that in the 2021 municipal elections and the 2022 regional elections, National Coalition Party candidates already received more than two-thirds of all corporate donations. And that's not [the true figure], because most candidates did not file an election finance declaration,” says SDP Party Secretary Mikkel Näkkäläjärvi.

Candidate. MEP and former Left Alliance Chairperson Li Andersson has dropped out of this spring’s municipal elections. She says that scheduling is the issue: she can’t fit in council meetings with her work in Brussels.

Park. What’s in a name? Salo City Council is planning to rename the Salo Sports Park to the Sauli Niinistö Sports Park in honour of the two-term former president, who grew up nearby.

Finland international 

🇨🇭 WEF. President Stubb led a delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week. Among many comments on various foreign policy issues, he urged NATO countries to listen to what Donald Trump has to say about defence spending - the US president wants NATO members to raise it even higher as a percentage of their GDP.

📺 Stubb met with various world leaders in Davos, including from Israel, Iran and Ukraine. He was also living his best life giving TV interviews. Here’s his comments to Bloomberg and also his interview with CNBC:

🇺🇸 Trump/Biden. President Stubb sent a message of congratulations to Donald Trump this week, and also thanked outgoing US President Biden for “excellent cooperation” between the two countries during his time in office.

🇸🇪🇳🇴🇩🇰🇮🇸 Nordics. On the evening of Trump’s inauguration in Washington, Alex Stubb held a call with Nordic heads of government. “We discussed the new US administration and future cooperation among the Nordic countries, in Europe and within the Transatlantic alliance,” he wrote on social media.

🇧🇾 Belarus. Two Finnish MPs have denounced Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Belarus as “theatre.” In a statement, Kimmo Kiljunen (SDP) and Eva Biaudet (SFP) said the state of democracy in Belarus has deteriorated sharply since the rigged 2020 presidential election which led to a a popular uprising that was violently suppressed.

“All protests have been suppressed, independent NGOs have been closed, and the opposition has been imprisoned or fled the country. There are currently an estimated 1,300 political prisoners in Belarus, who are being held in inhumane conditions,” the MPs note.

NB: Until recently, Kiljunen was the chairperson of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee but he was forced to resign at the end of last year after making a number of comments that were perceived to be in line with Kremlin policy goals - such as re-opening the eastern border.

🇺🇸 Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (NCP) says Finland must “keep a cool head” when it comes to Donald Trump in the White House.

“Trump is known for his colourful language, and he sometimes brings up his objectives in a very sharp way, seeking to set his negotiating position. This is always worth remembering," Orpo told Yle. In Davos this week, President Stubb also referenced Trump’s “transactional” way of conducting himself.

🌐 Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen was in Vienna this midweek to present Finland’s programme for its OSCE chairmanship to the organisation’s members. I recently took a look at what we can expect from Finnish leadership during 2025, and some of the issues facing the OSCE where Ukraine, Russia and Belarus are all members:

🇷🇺 Russia. A new government report concludes that Finland is not a primary target for Russia’s information influence operations, but it is also not immune.

“According to the overview, Russia’s information influence activities focus on threatening and fear-inciting rhetoric that Russia aims to insert into the public debate in the target country. Key narratives include framing NATO as an aggressive alliance, criticising support for Ukraine and questioning the motives behind Western sanctions policy.”

And finally…

Here’s another fast Finn you should get to know: Emma Kimiläinen competes in the E1 racing series and has a really fun and engaging social media presence. I like this video of her delight at finding a Finnish sauna in Saudi Arabia!

Thank you, kiitos, tack!

That’s the end of another bumper edition of Finland Insider. If you have any feedback, story ideas, tips or scoops please do not hesitate to get in touch with me directly on email at [email protected] 

Thanks for subscribing and reading, and catch you next weekend.

David