Petteri Orpo, Finland’s likely new leader
Finland’s new national conservative government has signaled that they would resist handing over more of their national competences to the European Union. Along with the new centrist Swedish government, they are adding their voice to a host of other European countries who have recently voiced their concern over Brussels’ political and administrative overreach.
The new center-right coalition agreement has ruled out increasing Finland’s payments to the EU, even though the bloc’s institutions have called for larger contributions from national governments to fund extra expenses rising from the war in Ukraine.
The new agreement also aims to put a stop-gap to the European Commission’s drive to adopt an increasing number of powers from its member-states, saying that “Finland advocates for a clear division of competences between the Union and the member states, which should not be expanded with a new interpretation of the treaties.”
The June 16 agreement speaks with a resolute voice about Finland’s interest in developing the EU into a better and more effective Union. “Finland’s national interests must be identified and safeguarded in decision-making: The Government aims to increase the amount of funding Finland receives while preventing solutions that would be harmful to Finland. The EU budget must be kept at a reasonable level, avoiding an increase in Finland’s net contribution. The EU’s own resources system must not be developed in a way that would result in a relative additional cost for Finland.”
The wording is a clear U-turn from the approach that Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s previous liberal government had taken in rubber stamping decisions from Brussels. However, apart from the newly found emphasis on national interest, the new government also wants to divert from its predecessors’ approach to immigration.
As far as the forming government’s new asylum policy is concerned, when compared to the former Sanna Marin government’s approach, formally it is recognizably coming closer to certain topics and goals of the Hungarian government’s policies. It says, for instance, that “assistance will be primarily provided to the most vulnerable people in their regions of origin”, which means the emphasis is shifting towards helping vulnerable people primarily in the regions where they live, instead of solving the problem by allowing them to migrate to the EU. “The use of the asylum mechanism based on crossing European borders and applying for asylum in Finland will be minimized”, says the text.
The new Finnish government would also introduce prison sentences for those who come or stay in the country illegally: “the Government will ensure, with respect for the principle of non-refoulement, that
persons who no longer have a residence permit or right of residence will no longer be eligible for a municipality of residence in Finland. The Government will examine the possibilities to impose a prison sentence as a punishment for illegal stays in the country”,
states the agreement. The statement also sets the annual refugee quota at 500.
The new government is likely to be led by National Coalition Party leader Petteri Orpo. Despite the toughening of immigration rules in the Nordic country and a drive to restrict the EU’s centralizing efforts, policies that the government in Budapest had been ostracized for in the past, it is unlikely that a new entente cordiale could be formed between the Finnish-Hungarian governments any time soon.
Budapest’s somewhat hesitant approach to ratifying Finland’s request to join NATO had ruffled some feathers in Helsinki. Equally, the Finnish decision to join a European lawsuit against the Hungarian child protection legislation, that increases sentences for child abuse and restricts the spread of gender-ideology in schools, and that came only a day after the parliament in Budapest had agreed to Finland’s NATO membership, was received with an amount from criticism from Hungarian conservative politicians. “Our Finnish friends have a lot to learn about decency. To scrounge until I achieve something and then immediately turn my back is not something decent people do. They are not making a report card about us, but about themselves”, said Tamás Menczer, MP for the Fidesz party.
