Tag: Finland politics

‘Mafia’ strikes bring Finland to a standstill

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Unions have called the industrial action to protest government proposals on labour law reforms which they say would adversely impact low-wage earners

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Hundreds of thousands of workers in Finland have joined widespread strikes which began Wednesday and will escalate through Thursday and Friday – with more strikes planned next week too. 

Unions called for industrial action to protest government proposals on labour law reforms which they say would adversely impact low-wage earners and shift a balance of power towards employers when it comes to setting salaries. 

A rally in the capital Helsinki attracted 10,000 workers, police said. A member of parliament from the ruling National Coalition Party wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that protesters had been paid “bribes” to attend. He offered no evidence to substantiate his claim. 

The strike comes right in the middle of campaigning in the second round of Finland’s presidential election, with politicians from the left and right canvassing hard for votes ahead of the ballot on Sunday 11 February.

The government maintains that their sweeping reforms are needed to make the Finnish economy more competitive, and as an indicator of how important the new proposals are to each side, the rhetoric has become more heated and divisive in recent weeks. 

“The need to reform our social security system and increase employment is urgent because of our public debt level. We need to get more people to work, decrease public spending and improve the operating environment to attract investments,” says Arto Satonen, Finland’s Minister for Employment. 

“The EU has pointed a finger at our debt-based public spending outlook and also the IMF has strongly supported the current Finnish government’s policies. For the sake of our future well-being, we should not and cannot leave the reforms undone,” he tells Euronews. 

Which sectors are hit by the strike action?

Unions estimate up to 300,000 workers could participate in the strikes, with Thursday’s rally in Helsinki bringing politicians from each side to the stage to address the crowd, many of whom held colourful balloons and placards. 

A strike by daycare staff in the capital city region started Wednesday, and they were joined by workers from across the spectrum of Finnish working life, impacting trains, trams and buses; airports, airlines and cabin crew; shipping, ferries and port operations; energy production companies; department stores and supermarket chains, hotels and restaurants; cleaning companies; tourism and leisure businesses; Finland’s biggest paper mills, mines and refineries; construction companies; and postal services. 

Maria Löfgren, the President of Akava which represents professional and managerial staff, tells Euronews that her union has “sought to resolve the escalated situation by proposing balancing solutions to the Prime Minister.” 

“So far, the government has not committed to taking them into account […] we want our solution to be genuinely considered,” she says.  

Minister Satonen, from the ruling National Coalition Party, says the government has been working together with unions when preparing its reforms, but they are “absolutely necessary” and that unions cannot have a “right of veto” on the plans. 

What exactly does the Finnish government want to change?

At the heart of the dispute are two main changes the government says it needs to make the Finnish economy more competitive. 

First, there would be swingeing cuts to social welfare provisions, with some of those cuts already implemented. Unions say it would mean hundreds of euros lost each month for people already on low incomes – a serious issue in sectors like retail where wages are already low – and it would adversely impact women who are more likely to be employed in some of those low-wage occupations. 

Secondly, the government wants to rewrite the rules on collective bargaining. 

Finland had traditionally used a tripartite model for labour negotiations: involving the government, representatives from trade unions, and representatives from employers too. That system has largely collapsed in recent years for various reasons, but the government’s latest raft of changes to negotiations, unions claim, would mean the bargaining power of workers is further weakened. 

Unions are concerned that more changes to this decades-old system would be detrimental as it fragments wage negotiations and puts more power in the hands of industries or individual companies to set maximum wage increase levels, potentially leading to income disparity even among people with similar jobs.

“In the long run, this kind of change would almost surely mean lower wages and less beneficial conditions for workers,” says Pekka Ristelä, Head of International Affairs at SAK, the Confederation of Finnish Trade Unions.

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The government has also proposed a system in which pay across the economy is tied to the export sector. It would bar the national labour mediator, which is frequently involved in setting pay, from proposing wage hikes in any labour dispute that are higher than those agreed with the export sector.

Reform plans, and strike action, fire up war of words

The government’s plans, and the unions’ calls for strike action, have again pitted Finland’s ruling right against the left. 

Government ministers have called the unions “mafia”, while right-wing politicians have claimed union leaders will “punish” workers who opt not to strike, and offered free legal advice to anyone in this situation. Another MP from a government party described the right to industrial action as a “pointless inconvenience.” 

Finland’s coalition government, which includes a far-right party as the second biggest partner, has repeatedly tried to paint the strikes as dangerously political, saying they have already secured a mandate from the voters to carry out their reforms – and that unions shouldn’t try to outflank them. 

A citizens’ initiative petition to ban so-called political strikes is supported by several politicians from the prime minister’s party.  

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“It is dangerous if we start seeing internationally recognised, established social players as ‘mafia’ and using those kind of labels. I would say that can be the start of a very harmful societal development,” says SAK’s Pekka Ristelä. 

“International treaties, in particular the ILO, has specific rules on what kind of political strikes must be allowed, and political strikes are directed against government policies that have an effect on workers,” he adds, describing a worrying “Trump effect” where legitimate actions are called into question.

“On the whole, we have wide support in the population.”



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Left vs Right: Finland goes to the polls in close presidential race

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The two leading contenders represent the left and right-wing of the Finnish political spectrum and are separated by just three percentage points as advance polling stations open.

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Finns head to the polls this week with advance voting open in the presidential election, while the main ballot takes place at the end of the month.

Voting patterns suggest a third of voters at home and abroad could cast their ballots ahead of 28 January, with Finns overseas also eligible to vote during this period.

From a field of nine candidates, two have emerged as clear favourites to go through to a second round of voting in mid-February, although a late surge from the far-right candidate could still be a surprise upset.

Two former foreign ministers, Alex Stubb from the ruling right-wing National Coalition Party (known locally as Kokoomus) and Pekka Haavisto, a Green politician, have been clearly ahead of the field in opinion polls in a long campaign that has seen the candidates face scrutiny on everything from their foreign policy chops to favourite music, books, food, what cars they drive, and their pets’ social media posts. 

The latest polling shows Stubb and Haavisto within three percentage points of each other. 

The role of the president in Finland is one of the few in Europe both directly elected and not largely ceremonial – unlike Italy, Germany, Estonia or Poland, for example. The position also comes with constitutional responsibility for foreign policy outside of the EU, and the office-holder is commander-in-chief of the Finnish defence forces.

But the president cannot act unilaterally: he or she must work in cooperation with the government of the day during their six-year term as Finland’s head of state.

The office took on greater importance under incumbent Sauli Niinistö, as Finland moved to cement its decades-long alignment with NATO and formally join the military alliance.

Alex Stubb represents the right

Alex Stubb, a US-educated former Finnish PM and foreign minister, has been out of frontline politics for the last seven years: first working at the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg, and then at a university in Italy.

That absence may have shielded him somewhat from the travails of Finnish domestic political dramas: his party Kokoomus has formed a coalition government with the far-right Finns Party, which has been dogged with controversies over racism, support for ethno-nationalist conspiracy theories and links to neo-Nazi groups since taking power last summer.

Although Stubb has so far remained above the government fray, he still attracts support from far-right voters who would prefer him in the presidential palace than his liberal, Green, gay opponent. 

“Voters would get an internationally very well-connected and politically experienced president with vast knowledge of European Union and European politics,” with Alex Stubb, says Jenny Karimäki, a political scientist at the University of Helsinki. 

Multilingual Stubb has been fervently pro-European throughout his political career and supported NATO membership long before it was fashionable to do so. But questions have been raised about his ‘likeability’ factor especially as his party is traditionally seen as the party of Finland’s rich – and his Swedish-Finnish background, elite education, penchant for designer suits and sometimes brusque attitude can rub working-class Finns up the wrong way. 

Stubb’s campaign said he was too busy to answer questions sent in advance by Euronews.

Pekka Haavisto represents the left

This is Pekka Haavisto’s third crack at becoming Finland’s president, he came second in the last two elections behind Sauli Niinistö. 

Europe’s first openly gay cabinet minister, Haavisto has been with his partner for more than 20 years, a trailblazer for LGBTQ representation at the highest levels of politics: leading his party, and working as a United Nations envoy. 

“Voters would get a president that held a key position as foreign secretary during Finland’s NATO process and thus, has cutting edge knowledge in the fields of foreign and security policy as well as a background and experience as a peace negotiator in Global South,” explains Jenny Karimäki from the University of Helsinki.

Haavisto tells Euronews there’s a feeling of “positive momentum” in his campaign, as he tours the country in a new campaign bus. 

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“People are very eager to discuss national security. There is a lot of enthusiasm in the air,” he adds. 

Seemingly able to deflect potential scandals with ease during his time at the foreign ministry, Haavisto has nonetheless been criticised for being a difficult manager, and for his handling of the scheme to bring back Finnish nationals married to ISIS fighters, and their children, who were stranded at a refugee camp in Syria. 

Haavisto might also have gone too far in trying to appeal as an everyman candidate, while alienating some on the left. In a strategy to attract voters from the centre and soft-right, Haavisto declared he wasn’t a “red” candidate. He brushed off that misstep, telling Euronews that “party affiliations are not at the forefront” of this campaign. 

“Haavisto’s track record and his managing skills and style have been under evaluation in the Finnish media,” adds Helsinki University’s Jenny Karimäki. 

Seven other candidates in a crowded race

There are seven other candidates in the race but so far none of them has seemed to break through nationally. 

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The leader of the Left Alliance party Li Andersson is considered one of the brightest politicians of her generation but still her polling hovers in the mid-single digits. 

Jutta Urpilainen, on leave from her job as Finland’s EU Commissioner, only jumped into the race belatedly, and somewhat half-heartedly, at the end of last year but has failed to gain any real traction for the Social Democrats. 

The Christian Democrats’ Sari Essayah, a former MEP and 1993’s 10,000 metre speedwalking World Champion is on her second presidential campaign and still polling around 1% – 2%; while Hjallis Harkimo, a millionaire reality TV show star who started his own Movement Now political party finds himself languishing there similarly. 

The Centre Party’s Olli Rehn, another former EU Commissioner and currently Chairman of the Bank of Finland has run a solid campaign, and looks ‘presidential’ in his appearances, but his party’s national fortunes have been in the doldrums since the last general election and this will almost certainly reflect on him: Rehn will be lucky to get more than 10% of the vote in the first round.   

Mika Aaltola, an independent candidate with a background in foreign policy, has seen his poll numbers drop like a stone from being one of the front-runners a year ago to low single digits now. A lack of party infrastructure to support his campaigning, and lack of prior political experience, have proved to be the weak points in his presidential bid. 

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The candidate of the far-right Finns Party, Jussi Halla-aho has attempted to fire the campaign with increasingly populist rhetoric: he’s filed police reports against a young Green politician and a comedian for calling him a “fascist”; and he’s also said that Members of Parliament and government ministers should be native-born Finns without a foreign background, something that has been criticised as unconstitutional.

But could he make a late, populist surge, and get into the second round of voting? 

“To my knowledge Halla-aho’s support comes mainly from the Finns Party supporters and he has not been able to attract support across the party spectrum,” says Jenny Karimäki from the University of Helsinki.

“Finns Party support is at around 17% and should he be able to convince all of them it might be a tight race but to do that Halla-aho would have to win back all those Finns Party supporters currently supporting Alexander Stubb,” she explains.

“Thus far, Halla-aho’s campaign has not, however, revealed anything particularly new aspects of him and his politics that would turn the table in his favour vis-a-vis Stubb.”

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Finland’s presidential election campaign heats up the winter months

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Russia’s war in Ukraine and destabilising “hybrid warfare” actions on the eastern border put foreign and security policy at the top of the agenda for candidates and voters alike.

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November, in Finnish, translates as ‘dead month’, and is nobody’s favourite time of year. 

But the presidential election race is lighting up the winter murk of the Nordic nation, as Russia’s war in Ukraine and destabilising “hybrid warfare” actions on the eastern border put foreign and security policy at the top of the agenda for candidates and voters alike. 

Finland’s EU Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen is the latest, and last, main candidate to join the slate for January’s vote. And she’s left it late.  

The Social Democrat’s belated entry to the race betrays her prospects of winning – Urpilainen reportedly declared only now to allow herself the maximum time away from her EU job without actually losing it. 

She won’t even start campaigning in earnest until December, which has meant that senior figures from her party have been left with the bizarre indignity of making public appearances holding a life-size cutout of the former finance minister just to try and keep her name in the public eye, while other candidates had launched their campaigns months before. 

The powers of the Finnish president have shrunk over the last four decades but the officeholder still takes the lead on foreign policy outside of the EU and is commander-in-chief of the Finnish military. It’s one of the few presidential roles in Europe that is both directly elected by the people and wields executive powers. 

The foreign and security policy campaign

Finland’s entry into NATO, and the geopolitical realities of being Russia’s neighbour during a time of war, have put a spotlight on this election like never before. It’s attracted some ‘big beast’ candidates with experience as prime minister, foreign ministers, party leaders, MEPs, and EU Commissioners on their resumes. 

“We are now at the heart of Finnish security and foreign policy issues,” says Pekka Haavisto, a Green politician who was runner-up in the last two presidential elections and is a frontrunner this time round too. The former UN Special Representative and foreign minister would become Finland’s first Green, and first gay president if elected. 

“People are asking about NATO, the future of Russia, the defence cooperation agreement with the US. And now in the last week there were many questions about the Middle East and how that influences world politics,” he tells Euronews. 

“Even China and Taiwan issues come up regularly, people are following the news closely.”

Haavisto has woven together a broad coalition of well-known supporters from across Finland’s political spectrum – including from the parties of his rivals – as well as household names in Finnish culture and sport to back his third bid for the presidency. 

“It was important to get those people with different political backgrounds behind my campaign, people have already made that choice based on personalities and not on traditional political party links. But for the first time in my campaign we have big names from the economic side too, and entrepreneurs,” he explains in an interview with Euronews as he heads to a campaign event in Eastern Finland. 

“It is an interesting phenomenon, to show that I am not just a [left-wing] candidate.” 

Former Prime Minister Alex Stubb is one of the other front-runners, with most polls showing the National Coalition Party candidate trailing Haavisto in the first round – where the outright winner would have to get more than 50% of the vote – and trailing in a possible second-round clash too. 

With an estimated €1.5 million from supporters and the right-wing National Coalition Party at his disposal, Stubb is running the richest campaign this election cycle. 

He benefits from having been out of Finnish domestic politics and above the fray in recent years, when he quit the country to work in Luxembourg and then Italy after leading his party to a fourth-place election defeat in 2015. A campaign to be ‘President of Europe’ also fell flat when he was defeated as the EPPs spitzenkandidat in a race that ultimately saw Ursula von der Leyen appointed to the role. 

While Stubb, also a former foreign minister and MEP, is undoubtedly at home on the international stage, a perceived lack of interest in domestic issues has dogged his political career. 

Being president would mean he’d have to spend significant amounts of time cutting ribbons, having tea with pensioners and visiting factories among the more routine and mundane tasks of the role, something party insiders concede he is ill-suited to. 

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Life on the campaign trail

The presidential election campaign season in Finland is long, with prospective candidates often jostling for attention already during the summer and then, once declared, subjected to an endless round of panel discussions, radio and TV interviews, shopping mall stump speeches, and shaking countless hands at market place meet-and-greets the length and breadth of the country. 

“It’s a tough workload,” says Li Andersson, the Left Alliance candidate who is also the leader of her party. 

“I have to build my campaign around my work in parliament because that’s what I’m elected to do. In January we have a break in the parliamentary session and I will be able to use those weeks to tour around the country, and I’ll be using weekends in December for tours,” she tells Euronews. 

“I love meeting people, and you shouldn’t be in political affairs unless you love people. For me, that’s part of the job,” she adds. 

“There is a strong sense of seriousness around the country when you give a speech and have a Q&A when I go to a marketplace or coffee shop or library,” says OIli Rehn, a former EU Commissioner on leave during the campaign from his job as Governor of the Bank of Finland. 

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“When you discuss foreign and security policy or what NATO membership implies, or Russian aggression or the president’s constitutional powers, there is a very strong and deep silence in the room and you can feel that people are very focused. There is a sense of seriousness in the campaign this time round,” the Centre Party candidate tells Euronews. 

Despite the serious nature of the campaign overall, there’s also a lot of fluff in the hoops that Finland expects its presidential candidates to jump through to entertain voters and show some of their personality. 

In the past, they’ve had to endure cooking segments on morning TV shows, while this time around candidates appeared on a prime-time Saturday variety show where a band played their favourite song and they had to tell the audience the story behind it – the sort of format a cynic would say is ripe for exploitation by any clever politician, who can concoct an emotional tale to warm even the iciest of Finnish voters’ hearts. 

“These so-called lighter programmes have become part and parcel of all election campaigns at least in Finland. I take it as a fact rather than think whether I like it or not, I try to enjoy it as much as possible,” says Rehn, who recently stood outside a Helsinki library making lemonade with students to encourage them to become entrepreneurs. 

“People are interested because they want to have the chance to glimpse and see the character and personality of the candidates.” 

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Smaller parties get equal billing during campaign

Traditionally in Finland, smaller parties have put forward a presidential candidate even if there’s no realistic chance of winning or reaching the second round. Individuals too can run for office if they first collect more than 20,000 signatures from voters.  

This year there are candidates running from all the major political parties in parliament, including the Finns Party, Christian Democrats and Movement Now, but not the Swedish People’s Party. There are also individual declared fringe candidates who are unlikely to gather enough support to get on the ballot. 

“There is a very competitive list of candidates who have ministerial jobs, and like myself who was head of a foreign policy think tank,” explains independent candidate Mika Aaltola, who did collect enough signatures and polled high during the spring and summer, but whose support has since cooled off. 

“Clearly it is a crossroads for Finland, the citizens and political parties want to put forward candidates who have a lot of credible experience,” he adds. While Aaltola has the foreign policy chops as head of the Finnish Institute for International Affairs – he first broke through after a string of clear-headed fact-based media appearances when Russia invaded Ukraine – his lack of direct political experience has shown through as the race goes on. 

He concedes that his campaign has only €25,000 in the bank, a fraction of most other candidates, and he relies heavily on a team of volunteers.  

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“I don’t have a PR agency or comms agency creating a campaign strategy. All that is missing,” he tells Euronews after a turbulent couple of weeks when he endured bad press following a series of gaffes which a more seasoned political operator would have known how to avoid in the first place. 

The Left Alliance’s Li Andersson explains that it’s “important for democracy that you have a broad representative of candidates with views on foreign and security policy, and smaller parties can raise important questions for us and for a lot of voters too.” 

Polling in the middle of the pack so far, Andersson is the youngest candidate in the field but has been party leader for the last eight years. As an MP she sat on the foreign affairs committee in parliament; she was minister of education in Sanna Marin’s government, and lead her party through two successful general election campaigns. 

“This is the fora for talking about foreign and security policy, which is a hugely important part of the conversation in Finland,” she says. 

The first round of the Finnish presidential election is held on 28 January. If no single candidate gets more than 50% of the votes, a second round featuring the top two candidates will be held on 11 February.

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Finland faces autumn of discontent with strikes and protests

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Trade union leaders say the right-wing government is a ‘reverse Robin Hood’ administration: cutting benefits to the poor, but rewarding the rich with tax breaks.

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Finland’s right-wing government is facing an autumn of discontent as trade unions and students put pressure on it over cuts to social welfare, the erosion of employment rights and job security, and new restrictions on international students who want to stay in the Nordic nation.

Trade union leaders have branded Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government a ‘reverse Robin Hood administration’ slashing benefits for the poor while rewarding the rich with tax cuts.

The most visible recent protests began with students occupying Helsinki University, a movement now entering its third week for which a thousand university staff members have signed a letter of support. Organisers say the movement has “spread like wildfire” to every other major university in the country.

“We support the students’ views, and the University leadership understands the occupiers’ concerns about the livelihood of students,” says Vice-Rector Kai Nordlund in a statement.

Students say they’ve endured enough cuts, and a line must be drawn. 

“During the last decade the welfare support that Finnish students receive has been constantly cut, and this government is continuing that, worsening the situation for students and forcing us to take on more debt in order to study which means when we graduate we have a huge amount of debt to pay off,” says Havu Laakso, one of the  students occupying Helsinki University.

Laakso and their compatriots start the week with a boost to morale after a standoff with authorities, which ordered them out before Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö was due to speak at a recent event in the building. At the eleventh hour the university capitulated and the students, whose ranks had swelled with the prospect of forced eviction, managed to make plenty of noise during Niinistö’s speech.

“This current government also wants to increase tuition fees and tighten immigration policy making it so that international students only have three months to find a job once they graduate, or they get kicked out,” Laakso tells Euronews.

Experts have been baffled as to why the current government would cut housing allowances, while at the same time needs to attract thousands of foreign workers to fill traditionally low-paid jobs like nursing and elderly care – workers who rely on exactly these sorts of benefits to make ends meet; and also why there would be such a tight timeline imposed on international graduates whose skills are needed if Finland wants to be one of Europe’s most innovative and tech-lead economies. 

One politician from the ruling National Coalition Party ratcheted up the rhetoric over the weekend by framing the students as ‘left-wing invaders’ who were unreasonably demanding more grants and allowances from the state; while opposition politicians from the Social Democrats questioned why members of parliament were willing to make welfare cuts, but not willing to go to the protest and explain why they were doing it, face-to-face.

What would Jesus do? Finland’s churches get involved

Meanwhile a Helsinki parish church described it as “ungodly” to cut money from already low-income and disadvantaged people, and the official Turku Cathedral social media accounts posted a similar message of support, saying “caring for your loved ones is part of the Christian faith, regardless of party affiliation.” 

The ‘occupy education’ strikes have even spread to some Finnish high schools, first in the capital region and now several other cities, as the union representing high school students, Lukio, encourages its teenage members to speak up.

“There are a lot of protests taking place everywhere around the country, and I think the government will have to pay attention, but I’m not too hopeful they will change,” Lukio chairperson Ella Siltanen tells Euronews.

The Finnish government promised to send a statement to Euronews about the ongoing situation, but failed to do so before publication.

Government’s attempts at labour market reform

Alongside cuts to student benefits and tighter immigration measures, the government is also proposing some of the widest reforms to the labour market in decades, and while experts agree that Finland’s social security system and labour market regulations are ripe for overhaul, Finns are reluctant to embrace wholesale change.

A previous attempt at sweeping reforms in the early 1990s fell by the wayside after unions threatened a nationwide general strike; and more recently, the introduction of a so-called ‘activation model’ to get people off benefits and into employment introduced by PM Juha Sipilä’s government in 2018 was met with widespread protests, as it essentially punished unemployed jobseekers who couldn’t find work. 

The deeply unpopular activation model was largely rolled back by the next, left-wing, government after it was revealed more than 90,000 people had their benefits cut.

Unions launch three weeks of targeted strike action

The current government swept into office on a promise to limit government borrowing, and rein in what they viewed as the ‘profligate’ spending of the Sanna Marin administration.

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But they’ve already blown through their own €10 billion borrowing limit, and are now acquiring debt at the same rate as Marin’s government, putting to rest any lingering notion that the fiscally conservative National Coalition Party is somehow naturally better at handling the economy than its left-wing counterpart the Social Democrats.

“I think we have to go back to the 1990s before we had this kind of government,” explains Jarkko Eloranta, the President of the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions SAK.

“This is not an austerity budget the government has introduced, because they are giving tax relief for the most wealthy, like lowering taxes for people earning morning than €80,000 per year,” he tells Euronews.

“This is a reverse Robin Hood government, it takes from the poor and gives to the rich so in that sense it is only an austerity budget for low-income people.”

As part of the wider protests, Eloranta’s SAK has announced three weeks of targeted strike action in different sectors, and in different parts of the country. The union is flexing its muscle, hoping to give the government a taste of what could happen if they don’t walk back some of the policies that unions find problematic.

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“Of course we have other plans ahead if the situation continues, and I am quite sure the government is not shaken or backing down due to our current activities,” says Eloranta, hinting at the possible escalation of strike action. 

Finnish media reports that Minister of Finance Riikka Purra, leader of the far-right Finns Party, has refused to meet with senior trade union leaders since taking office in June. 

“The government says they are listening but there’s no real discussions, no real negotiations, they are just implementing their own policies,” says Eloranta.



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5 things we already know about Finland’s new right-wing government

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From tax cuts to climate change, increased VAT to Finland’s international reputation, here’s some key things you should know.

The setting and symbolism couldn’t have been more striking, or more different. 

After the 2019 Finnish election, the parties of the new coalition government presented their policy programme in Helsinki’s spectacular Oodi Central Library in the morning over coffee, and took questions from the public and journalists alike — before embarking on a tour of town halls up and down the country to have conversations with voters about the future direction of Finland. 

Compare that with 2023, when the four parties which make up Finland’s new coalition government summoned journalists at 6pm on a Friday evening, no members of the public allowed, to unveil their policy agenda — which came after seven weeks of fractious negotiations.

The right-wing National Coalition Party, known locally as Kokoomus, emerged from the April general election with the most seats in parliament, and partnered with the next biggest group, the far-right Finns Party. Also on board are the Christian Democrats and the Swedish People’s Party, with Kokoomus leader Petteri Orpo as Finland’s next prime minister. 

So what are some of the key things we know already about the new government programme, and how might it all unfold now: 

1. This is the most right-wing Finnish government in modern times

Kokoomus has a vocal EU-sceptic and immigrant-sceptic wing. The Christian Democrats’ best-known MP is anti-abortion, and became something of a cause celebre among the US Christian right when she carried a bible into court to face charges of being anti-LGBT. She was later cleared. 

Meanwhile, the Finns Party’s track record on immigration, the EU and fighting the climate crisis speaks for itself. 

There are also several Finns Party MPs, including senior party members, with convictions for race-related crimes, and the younger cadre of Finns Party politicians who came to prominence during the last two election cycles have a fondness for Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. 

“Petteri Orpo’s government programme is building a European, free and secure Finland that will not just sit on its hands,” insists Kokoomus MP Elina Valtonen, who is likely to land one of the big ministerial portfolios in the new government.

“A strong and caring NATO Finland, where consumer choice increases, entrepreneurship pays, skills are valued, living standards rise and nature is cared for,” she adds. 

But political analyst Juho Rahkonen says “we have a more right-wing government than perhaps ever before,” a stark contrast to outgoing Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s five-party center-left coalition.

Finns Party leader Riikka Purra said the Nordic nation should opt for a tougher immigration line, and called for stricter asylum policy, time-limited protection of asylum-seekers, mandatory integration, and plans to reduce the number of quota refugees, saying those policies would amount to “a paradigm shift.”

2. The Swedish People’s Party is taking a reputational gamble

No party has more at stake in this coalition government than the Swedish People’s Party SFP/RKP. 

With ten seats in parliament, they are the only party which was also in the previous government — an administration which put intersectional feminism at the heart of policymaking with Sanna Marin as prime minister.

Over the last four years they’ve moved further to the left on issues of internationality, multi-culturalism, human rights and immigration — an anathema to the Finnish right-wing.  

Before negotiations, SFP/RKP leader Anna-Maja Henriksson said she wouldn’t be in the government if it was doing Finns Party politics, but she seems to have capitulated and it’s difficult to see at this stage what she has actually won for her party — except perhaps to prolong Finland’s widely-criticised fur farming industry, which employs around two thousand people, many of them in her own constituency area. 

For a party that’s already divided between it’s Ostrobothnia ‘countryside’ voters and the southern coastal ‘city’ voters, the Swedish People’s Party might have lost the chance to appeal to other non-Swedish-speaking Finns, immigrants and young people as potential voters, by joining up with a far-right party in government — indeed their own youth group leadership quit the government formation talks in protest at cooperation with the Finns Party, and Henriksson admitted on Friday that still not all her MPs were in favour of being in government with them.  

3. Four billion in savings needed

Petteri Orpo promised to find €4 billion in savings to reduce Finland’s debt, and that means a mixture of cuts — which are never popular with the people on the receiving end — and cost savings or fundraising in the form of increasing items with a 10% VAT to 14%, making it even more expensive to buy medicines, take part in sports, go to the cinema or cultural events, or book a hotel room. 

“Before the elections, we promised to put the country’s affairs in order. We promised an adjustment of €6 billion and 100,000 new jobs,” says Kokoomus MP Sinuhe Wallinheimo. 

Most of the savings are coming from €1.5 billion cuts to social security, and by re-jigging how regional healthcare systems are funded from the central government to generate efficiency savings. 

There will be freezes for the next four years on earnings-related unemployment insurance, housing allowance and some other benefits. 

There’s cuts of €125 million for education and culture grants, and an adult education subsidy will also be scrapped. Some €250 million will be cut from funding for new roads projects and another €250 million from development aid budgets. 

Tax on beer will decrease, but taxes on wines, spirits and soft drinks will go up. 

“There is enough money for investors and high earners, but poor families with children, students and the elderly are being cut,” says Jussi Saramo, chair of the Left Alliance Parliamentary Group. 

“For example, massive housing benefit cuts will hit students, single parents and those working in low-wage jobs hard,” he says. 

4. Fighting the climate crisis

The previous Finnish government were enthusiastic about setting targets to meet and even exceed international agreements on carbon emissions – even if they were less enthusiastic about taking enough concrete steps to meet those goals fast enough. 

Within the new government, the Finns Party has been opposed to the idea that Finns — who they say are among the least polluting people on the planet — should have to take radical steps to fight the climate crisis when this should be done by big polluting countries instead. 

They’ve also wanted to lower the price of petrol and resisted calls to reduce the number of petrol cars on Finnish roads. 

“The new government is very much leaning towards the conservative right and takes Finland backwards when it comes to climate action and biodiversity protection,” says Ville Niinistö, a Finnish Green MEP. 

“The financing for nature protection is reduced by one-third from the previous Marin government and therefore we have no tools to protect our forests and waterways in line with global commitments to stop biodiversity loss,” he tells Euronews. 

Niinistö notes that while the new government doesn’t formally back down on the commitment to be carbon neutral by 2035, its policies are “leading away from that goal”. 

The new government plans to reduce tax on petrol by €100 million, and reduce vehicle taxes by €50 million. 

5. Finland’s international reputation could take a hit

In large part thanks to Sanna Marin’s profile, Finland has enjoyed unprecedented good press internationally over the last four years. 

From being the happiest country in the world to putting extra money into development aid for women and children when the Trump administration withdrew support, Finland has shored up its credentials as a reliable partner. 

But now there will be cuts to international aid, amounting to hundreds of millions of euros. Finland will also be less welcoming to asylum seekers and so-called ‘quota migrants.’  

And having a far-right party in power probably doesn’t do a lot to burnish Finland’s brand image as a friendly, welcoming country. 

Kokoomus MP Saara-Sofia Sirén says that in the new government programme, Finland “promotes the rights of women and girls across its foreign policy.” 

“The priorities of the government’s development policy are strengthening the status of women and girls, the right to self-determination, and sexual and reproductive health,” but doesn’t address whether budget cuts to international aid will impact the scope or scale of the services which Finland currently funds.



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Finland election: The issues making headlines on the campaign trail

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The latest election polling in Finland is too close to call between the incumbent Social Democrats, the conservative National Coalition Party and the far-right nationalist Finns Party. 

Any one of those parties could find themselves in pole position to lead a new government when all the votes are counted. 

Every policy question is being closely scrutinised by the media, every media gaffe or public slip-up is being pounced upon, and the three main party leaders — Sanna Marin, Petteri Orpo, Riikka Purra — are under the microscope like never before. 

So what are some of the main policy strengths and weaknesses the parties face? 

This election season it’s more about traditional party ideology — left versus right — than values-based issues like the environment, equality, or even joining NATO, which is now done and dusted. 

Marin’s Social Democrats have been under fire from right-wing opponents for what they see as wasteful economic policies that have done nothing but add to Finland’s debt burden in an irresponsible way over the last four years. 

And Marin herself has come under fire for comments she made during a recent trip to Kyiv, and not just from rival politicians. Commercial television channel MTV3 wrote an editorial branding her “either completely ignorant or downright unscrupulous” for saying that Finland “could” talk about giving up its Hornet fighters to Ukraine, with the Nordic nation waiting for deliveries of their next generation fighters from the US starting in 2025. 

The country’s most-read newspaper Helsingin Sanomat went as far as to say the Hornet issue (Finnish politicians can be particularly prickly around discussions of national security) could tip the balance of Sunday’s election. 

There’s also regular criticism that Marin rarely — if ever — takes responsibility for policy missteps and instead likes to pass the blame on to her opponents (which, to be fair, is something that most politicians try to do!) 

The National Coalition Party — or Kokoomus as it’s known locally — has been criticised by politicians and economists who say its plans to balance the national budget simply don’t add up, and they’ll have to cut so deeply into basic services that it would hurt the lives of everyone in the country.

This week, economist Jussi Ahokas told public broadcaster Yle that Finland is “in a very good situation” compared to European countries when it comes to finances.

Kokoomus also has a problem that it’s seen by many — and repeatedly framed by Marin — as being too close to the far-right nationalists: and if you vote for Kokoomus, you’ll end up with a Finns Party government. 

For their part, the Finns Party are perennially dogged by allegations of racism and xenophobia among their candidates; they’ve promised to take Finland out of the EU in one manifesto, while at the same time also said that’s not their goal any more.

Their humourless leader Riikka Purra drew astonished gasps by saying on TV that culture was a “luxury” item – a hard sell in a country which revels in its rich literary, musical and visual arts scene: from small-town libraries to big international festivals and all points in between.

But what do election candidates on the streets, in the market places and in shopping centres talk to voters about?

Ahead of Sunday’s election, Euronews spoke with candidates on the campaign trail to find out which policies are most important to them, and where their opponents are falling short.

Finland’s Minister for Transport and Communications Timo Harakka tells Euronews that his political opponents have dropped the ball when it comes to education policies. 

“Kokoomus has been in charge through the 2010s when Finland cut education and research and development funding, and fell behind in percentage of college graduates. 

They broke their explicit promise not to cut education in 2015 and removed the right for every child to attend pre-school,” the Social Democrat MP explains.

“They opposed the Marin government’s school reform, which extended compulsory education until 18-years-old, just as they opposed equal comprehensive education back in the 1970s. 

“Again, now, they vow otherwise. They cannot make the cuts they propose without jeopardising our good school system,” he says. 

Green candidate Alviina Alametsä says that her party has put a particular focus on mental health services. 

“We are pushing different ways to prevent mental health issues including with universal basic income, and the wellbeing of nature,” she tells Euronews. 

Alametsä, who is one of Finland’s two Green MEPs in Brussels, says that programmes like one in Helsinki where three clinics provide therapy for free, are a good example of the concrete changes they’d like to see. 

“I am worried though, that if the National Coalition Party is making it to government, or if they are the prime minister, I am worried they will put a lot of cuts to education and mental health budgets, and to social security.”

“I think they are trying to push for economic growth from the wrong angle, and we have research to show this is not working.” 

National Coalition Party politician Sinuhe Wallinheimo represents a constituency in Central Finland, and says that other parties aren’t concerned enough about the economic “crisis” in Finland. 

“And by that I mean the amount of debt that Finland has right now, and what has to be done about it,” he tells Euronews. 

“I think in my party we are better at pro-market politics than the other ones. We rely on the state but we believe in pro-market and competition between individuals, and competition between the companies, which is better for society,” he adds. 

“When we discuss immigration policy, I believe our party understands the facts,” says Fatim Diarra, who is a Green League candidate in Helsinki. 

“We need people to come to Finland, but at the same time we cannot treat immigrants as cows we milk to put money into the system. But instead, we must see Finland as a place where we welcome people to build a life to suit their circumstances,” she tells Euronews.

Diarra, who missed out on a seat in parliament in the 2019 election by just 200 votes, says that people who come to Finland to make a better life for themselves need access to education and labour markets, and shouldn’t only be thought of as candidates for low paid jobs. 

“Some parties see immigration only as a tool to make people work for Finns. When I discuss this with people from some parties, they want immigrants to work in the service industry and health care.

“They see immigration as a cheap labour force, but this is not the way the Greens see it. Finland is a good country, our social structure is strong and we welcome people to come here and build a good life for themselves.” 

The city of Jyväskylä in Central Finland has traditionally been a bastion of support for the Centre Party, Keskusta. Once a powerhouse of Finnish politics, Keskusta has slumped dramatically over the last four years despite being in government, and they’re now polling their lowest ever numbers. 

They are predicted to lose up to ten seats on Sunday. 

MP Joonas Könttä, a former Finnish diplomat, says his party’s focus has been on “aluepolitikka” or regional policies. 

“We want to take care of the countryside and the cities, so the same level of services are available all over the country,” he tells Euronews. 

“No other parties are underlining the possibilities of the whole country.”



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Everything you need to know about Finland’s general election

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Voters in Finland go to the polls on Sunday in a general election that could see a change of both prime minister and ruling coalition government. 

Here’s everything you need to know about Finnish politics, parties, personalities and the issues at stake as the Nordic nation votes: 

How did we get here?

The last general election in April 2019 saw Prime Minister Antti Rinne brought to power, leading a new red-green administration. 

If you don’t remember Rinne, that’s because he lasted less than six months in office and was replaced by Sanna Marin before the end of that year after some internal squabbles with the Centre Party. 

A Centre Party leadership change resulted in that famous female-lead government lineup in Finland — where all five party leaders were women, with four of them under the age of 35 at the time — which put intersectional feminism at the heart of government policymaking. 

There was yet another change of leader at the Centre Party in 2020  parliament, but it still left five women heading the government — unprecedented in Finland or anywhere around the world. 

How does an election in Finland work?

Up for grabs on 2 April are 200 seats in the Finnish Parliament — or Eduskunta — including one representative from the autonomous Åland Islands (which also has its own small parliament in the capital Mariehamn, to govern on devolved issues). 

Early voting already got underway from 22 to 28 March at locations around the country (and from 22 to 25 March at Finnish embassies. According to the Ministry of Justice’s election information service, by Monday morning some 25.9% of people had cast their ballots ahead of Sunday’s election day. 

Unlike some other Nordic and Baltic countries, there’s no minimum threshold for parties to get into parliament, but if a party gets more than 2% of votes nationally they qualify for state funding in the future. 

Which are the main parties?

At the last election in 2019 there were nine parties returned to parliament, spanning from the Left Alliance on one side of the political spectrum, to the far-right populist Finns Party on the other. 

There’s been a bit of splintering in parliament since then — one Finns Party MP was expelled after being too racist, and set up his own solo parliamentary group; while a National Coalition Party MP lost the support of his party’s leadership after allegations surfaced about his conduct with young women, and he also flew solo (he’s since decided to stand as a Finns Party candidate in April’s election). 

There was very little to separate the top three parties in 2019 — Social Democrats, Finns Party and National Coalition Party — with just one seat between each of them, and the polling is equally close at this election too.  

Social Democrats: This is the ruling centre-left party headed by Sanna Marin. Traditionally pro-union, more recently a political home for immigrants and people with a foreign background, Marin has positioned the party as more progressive and pro-European than ever before. A criticism however has been that Marin does not have a wide circle of political advisers, can tend to take decisions on her own, and it has been reported there’s nobody around her to say “no” even when needed. 

National Coalition Party: A right-wing, conservative political party headed by Petteri Orpo, and part of the EPP on a European level. Orpo’s not the most charismatic leader, and has historically struggled in debates with other more competent party leaders. The National Coalition Party, or Kokoomus as it’s known in Finland, is the only mainstream Finnish party never to have a female leader. 

Finns Party: A far-right populist movement, the Finns Party has done well to position itself as a place where protest voters can find a home: even as topics on which they traditionally focuse like immigration, have become less of an issue during this election campaign. The party’s leader Riikka Purra can come across as dour: but her plain style of speaking, and the party’s increasing use of TikTok, has seen them really connect with younger voters in particular. However there are still a lot of issues along the way, with allegations of racism in this campaign, and a number of Finns Party MPs with court convictions for race-related charges.  

Centre Party: Keskusta was a powerhouse of Finnish politics for decades, and even two governments ago was the largest party in parliament, when Juha Sipilä was prime minister. Since a terrible election result in 2019 when voters punished them for their part in austerity policies, Keskusta is on its third leader in Annika Saarikko who has marched her party down to its lowest every polling numbers. If they do as badly as predicted at this election, losing 5-10 seats, her time in office should be measured in minutes rather than hours: but you can never count Keskusta out in Finnish politics. 

Green League: Finland’s Greens have also been having a rough time of it in this election campaign, and in Helsinki will certainly see their dominant position slip, as they lose voters to the Social Democrats. They’re very much an urban Green party, like many in Europe, and their leader Maria Ohisalo is a talented politician, but has been under-used in the current government as interior minister where she had less chance to shine, and now as environment minister. 

Left Alliance: Under the leadership of Li Andersson, one of the sharpest politicians in government, the Left Alliance have had a good four years, and are on target to pick up a few extra seats at this election. 

Swedish Peoples’ Party: The Swedish People’s Party are one of the constants of Finnish politics, easily able to adapt themselves across the political aisle, and have been part of almost every government since the early 1980s. Their conservative economic policies fit nicely with the right, while their socially liberal, pro-European and values-based politics fit easily with the left. After seven years as party leader, we could however see Anna-Maja Henriksson step down, but expect the election result to be stable nonetheless, with 10 MPs predicted.  

Christian Democrats: While the party has drifted further to the right over the last few years, and lost support, its leader (former world champion long-distance walker) Sari Essayah is well liked and widely respected in parliament which possibly opens doors to government when coalition building begins. 

Liike Nyt: The ‘Movement Now’ party was founded by millionaire businessman Hjallis Harkimo who has been compared to Donald Trump as the former host of the Finnish “Apprentice” TV show, and because he appears to be trying to create a political dynasty with both his son and daughter running for parliament in next Sunday’s vote. Liike Nyt are unlikely to get more than one MP – Harkimon himself – into parliament as they bank on his own personal popularity especially among the small business community. A party which started out as an interesting experiment in democracy — Likke Nyt originally wanted to take positions on issues in parliament based on what their members voted in online polls — has largely just become a vanity project for Harkimo. 

There are also a dozen or so other, smaller, parties fielding candidates for the election. A number of them are on the extreme far right — basically neo-Nazi and white power parties — as well as the Feminist Party, an animal rights party and the Liberal Party. The Liberals (which started out life as the Whisky Party!) have been gaining ground for a few years especially around the Helsinki capital city region. Although it still seems like a reach for them to get a candidate elected to parliament, they might just cross the 2% threshold to receive state funding for their party going forward. 

Main policy themes

This is an unprecedented election in many ways: Sanna Marin’s government lead the country through the COVID pandemic, to general (if often grudging) satisfaction at home (but a fair amount of international praise).  

Marin also goes down in history as the prime minister who launched her country’s NATO application process. 

Previously, Finland had been closely aligned militarily with NATO and the West but not actually a member of the 28-nation alliance. That all changed in early spring 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when Finnish public opinion swung suddenly in favour of joining NATO. 

Marin is credited with not only taking Finland down the path of NATO membership but with pulling Sweden in the same direction: and it looks as if she might still be PM if both holdouts, Hungary and Turkey, ratify within the next several weeks. 

During the last election campaign, values issues like the environment, immigration and equality were important themes but this year there has been much more emphasis on the economy, the cost of living crisis, and spending prioirities for whoever gets into government.

“In the end, everything boils down to money one way or another. Whether we are talking about social politics, or education or national debt, I think everything is about money,” says Jenny Kärimäki, a political history researcher at the University of Helsinki. 

“Of course it’s all about where the money goes, and that’s an ideological choice, so we are back to discussing these very very traditional left-right issues,” she tells Euronews. 

One important factor in this election is Sanna Marin herself, explains Kärimäki, as the PM continues to perform strongly in the polls — better than her party, and better when measures against other party leaders. 

“If you look at opinion polls when people are asked whether they think Sanna Marin has done a good job, then her rating is always significantly higher than the rating for the Social Democratic Party. So she is definitely an asset to them. Then again, one can only vote for her in one electoral district,” says Kärimäki. 

“Then again, Sanna Marin as a figure, although she has a lot of support across party lines, there are also people who dislike her very intensely.” 

Any political blunders along the way?

No election campaign – indeed, no parliamentary cycle – is complete without some blunders along the way, and Sanna Marin in particular is no stranger to apologising for things that went wrong. 

In December 2021 she had to apologise for going on a night out to a Helsinki bar after the foreign minister got a positive COVID result. In summer 2022 she again felt she needed to apologise after videos of her dancing with friends, and dancing closely with a man in a nightclub went viral. She submitted to a drugs test (which also came back negative) and apologised yet again after two of her friends posted topless pictures in the official residence. 

She was also forced to apologise after a Euronews investigation found that little or no work had been done to advance a new piece of legislation on rights for Finland’s indigenous Sámi people, something which Marin had promised to get done. The bill ultimately failed at the last parliamentary committee hurdle.

None of this seems to have done her any harm in terms of domestic support, but critics have been harsh on her over more serious policy issues after she recently said during a visit to Kyiv that Finland “could” have a discussion about sending ageing Hornet fighter jets to Ukraine. 

After some Ukrainian media outlets latched onto this vague answer as if Marin had made a solemn promise, her political opponents at home have been trying to frame her as naive, ignorant or reckless not to have given a more concrete answer, that the Hornets were needed in Finland. 

Finland’s leading newspaper Helsingin Sanomat says the issue might even cost Marin the election.

Meanwhile none of the main party leaders covered themselves with glory at a recent television debate which descended into finger pointing and shouting — something decried in the papers as uncivilised and somehow deeply “un-Finnish” as this short clip demonstrates: 

The National Coalition Party is not without its policy problems as well. Long seen as the party of the comfortably well-heeled in Finland, they’ve recently had to flip-flop on cuts to student funding, and backtrack on other budget issues like how to balance the books and reduce national debt.

And the Finns Party caused a collective national gasp of horror recently when leader Riikka Purra said culture was a “luxury” item – a hard sell in a country which revels in its rich literary, musical and visual arts scene: from small town libraries to big international festivals and all points in between.  

When can we expect some results – and who might win?

We should know, more or less, the results of the election by midnight Helsinki time on Sunday evening. 

But that’s when the horse trading really starts. 

Some polling has suggested the Finns Party could win up to 49 seats, ahead of Kokoomus and the Social Democrats, tied in second place. 

If that is the case we could see a far-right lead government for the first time in Finland, a so-called black-blue government with the Finns Party, National Coalition Party, Christian Democrats and possibly Liike Nyt. 

“Some parties have now declared who they will not go into government with, but nobody has made the same kind of declarations about who the who they will go into government with,” explains the University of Helsinki’s Jenni Kärimäki.

“The Social Democrats, Greens, Left Alliance and Swedish People’s Party have declared they won’t go into government with the Finns Party. But then the Centre Party says it won join any government that looks like the current government,” she adds. 

If other parties don’t want to govern with the Finns Party — or if the National Coalition Party or Social Democrats find themselves in the lead even by a narrow majority — we could see a blue-red coalition instead, including the Swedish People’s Party and either Greens or Left Alliance. 

In case that alliance would be too left leaning to be palatable for Kokoomus politicians and voters, the Christian Democrats under leader Sari Essayah could find themselves with a token one minister to balance the scales. 

Or there could be another broad spectrum government, with Finns no strangers to so-called rainbow coalitions. 

“If we assume that Keskusta doesn’t go into government, then all we have left is a rainbow coalition. We are currently running out of options and combinations, and a rainbow coalition seems like that’s the way things are going,” says Jenni Kärimäki.



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Can ‘earthquake diplomacy’ help NATO chances for Sweden and Finland?

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In the hours after two massive earthquakes hit southern Turkey, the well-oiled wheels of humanitarian assistance started turning in Sweden and Finland. 

The Nordic nations are locked in something of a stalemate with Ankara over their NATO memberships — as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan holds up the process, demanding that Stockholm and Helsinki meet strict criteria before moving forward with ratification. 

So could ‘earthquake diplomacy’ soften Turkey’s stance towards the NATO applicants? 

It’s worked before in the region. 

Back in 1999 a powerful quake hit near the Turkish city of İzmit, and the Greeks were among the first to respond with aid, despite decades of enmity between the two neighbours. A few months later when a magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit Athens, the Turks reciprocated with help. 

The show of neighbourly good faith led to Greece dropping its objections on Turkey becoming an EU candidate country — something policy makers in Finland and Sweden will be hoping to see repeated. 

What aid have Sweden and Finland given?

The Swedes have so far given €3.3 million in humanitarian support, and sent more than 50 search and rescue experts, search dogs, and medical teams to Turkey. 

“The core support that Sweden is already contributing makes a big difference on the ground in Türkiye and Syria,” said Sweden’s Minister for International Development Cooperation Johan Forssell. 

Forssell said his government acted “swiftly and resolutely” but Dr Paul Levin at Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies said they could have moved faster.

“Sweden was late providing aid.” 

“I don’t think that’s a lack of trying or will, but that Sweden is not good at swift disaster response,” he told Euronews, citing critical Royal Commissions into official responses to the 2004 Asia tsunami, and COVID-19 pandemic. 

“I think we are unfortunately not good at disaster response,” Levin said.   

On the EU level, Sweden — which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Council —  convened the bloc’s Integrated Political Crisis Response mechanism last week, to coordinate all EU support for both Turkey and Syria at political level.

Swedish PM Ulf Kristersson and Ursula von der Leyen also announced they’ll organise an international donor conference for Turkey and Syria in March.

In Finland, the government response has been fairly fast and robust, and loudly telegraphed to Ankara.  

Helsinki provided heated emergency accommodation, including tents and stoves, for 3,000 people; and coordinated delivery of supplies through NATO. 

The Finns have also sent search and rescue experts, and also contribute multilaterally through the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund, which has so far given $50 million (€46.65 million).  

“Tens of thousands of people have died and the destruction is very extensive. The need for emergency accommodation in the area hit by the earthquake is huge,” said Finland’s Interior Minister Krista Mikkonen. 

“By sending material assistance, Finland aims to help people meet their basic needs. It is important that we provide help to the earthquake area as soon as possible.” 

What’s the situation in Ankara?

Whether Turkey’s government has the bandwidth to handle NATO applications during a time of unprecedented crisis is debatable. 

With a general election still scheduled for 14 May, Erdoğan had been using Sweden (and to a lesser extent, Finland) as a political straw man, painting the country as a place that harboured terrorists and as a risk to Turkey’s national security. 

If the election is somehow postponed, Erdogan might still need a bogeyman as a distraction to mounting political problems at home, a tactic that may not work so well a second time.  

“The NATO news in Finland has not fully taken into account how this massive human catastrophe has changed the Turkish political landscape and discussion,” explained Ozan Yanar, a Finnish politician who was born in Turkey, and served as a Greens MP from 2015-2019.

“Right now all the Turkish focus is on these earthquakes, and it will stay on earthquakes for a very long time,” Yanar told Euronews. 

Yanar said he thinks it unlikely any Turkish politician would try to shift the focus away from any official failings in earthquake preparedness or response, as they would find themselves “in the midst of huge political criticism.” 

“People are angry Turkey was not ready for this, and the state actions after the earthquakes have been very slow. People would be harshly disappointed and criticise the regime if they would start to speak about NATO, which is not the main topic in Turkey right now,” said Yanar, who is running for parliament again in Finland’s spring elections. 

What are the chances of 1999-style earthquake diplomacy?

Paul Levin from Stockholm University thinks the chances are low that anything Sweden and Finland do to help with humanitarian aid will move the needle for Turkey on ratifying NATO membership. 

“I just dont see any real impact in terms of public relations on the Turkish side,” he said bluntly, describing a country currently in turmoil, with a “messy” political situation. 

Quite the opposite: “If Erdogan sees he has been hurt by this, and sees he won’t be able to win the election, he has a strong incentive to pospone it,” said Levin. 

“The more desperate he becomes politically, the more appealing those kind of tactics will be. I think he will do just about anything to get re-elected.”

That could mean continuing to demonise Stockholm in particular, for failing to deport Kurds that Turkey says are terror suspects. 

Ankara wants Finland and Sweden to deport some 130 “terrorists” before it will approve their bids to join NATO. Erdogan declared in January that the Nordic countries must “hand over your terrorists,” with Sweden saying Turkey had made demands that could not — and would not — be met. 

“Maybe it’s a bit early to speculate what will happen, but so far I have not seen any of the positive outcomes of diplomacy,” said Levin.



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