Posts Tagged ‘Petteri Orpo’

Finland Elects Euroskeptic Government

Wednesday, June 21st, 2023

Here’s some underreported news.

Finland’s newly elected parliament on Tuesday voted in favour of National Coalition Party leader Petteri Orpo to become prime minister, as widely expected, ushering in a right-wing government and ending Social Democrat Sanna Marin’s rule.

Orpo will lead a coalition of the conservative NCP, the nationalist Finns, the minority-language Swedish People’s Party and the Christian Democrats, which together won a majority of parliamentary seats in the April 2 election.

The new finance minister will be Riikka Purra, head of the eurosceptic Finns Party, while the NCP’s deputy leader Elina Valtonen will become foreign minister when the government takes office later on Tuesday.

“I warmly thank you for the confidence you’ve shown me,” Orpo told parliament shortly after the vote.

A self-styled fiscal conservative, Orpo campaigned on a promise to reduce the government’s budget deficit by cutting spending while also reducing taxes and seeking to boost private sector job creation.

The new coalition also shifts immigration policy to the right, aiming to cut refugee quotas, raise the bar for work-based visas and make it more difficult for foreigners to obtain citizenship, key priorities for the Finns Party.

Orpo is hardly a bomb-thrower, with previous stints on the boards of the European Investment Bank and the European Stability Mechanism, which are embedded very deep inside the EU’s deep state. Nor will Finland’s new coalition be mistaken for the second coming of Ronald Reagan.

But time and time again we’re told that the EU policies (just like Social Justice policies in the U.S.) are popular, while time and time again EU member states elect government that oppose many of those policies, especially those favoring unlimited Muslim immigration into member countries.

Finally, those who assert that Euroskeptacism goes hand in hand with appeasing Russia will find that they’re mistaken, as Orpo backed Ukraine and Finland joining NATO.

For Finland Russia’s prox­im­ity is a key geostrategic fact, and the war in Ukraine indi­cates how the prob­lems asso­ci­ated with Russia’s aggres­sive behav­iour have mate­ri­al­ized. Russia is defin­ing its inter­ests in a way that threat­ens peace in Europe and creates inse­cu­rity in others. During the past decade, there have been upris­ings in several of Russia’s neigh­bors, which the Krem­lin has sought to violently suppress. Russia seeks a new sphere of influ­ence and wants to halt the demo­c­ra­tic devel­op­ment of other coun­tries. Not NATO, but the people’s will to decide for them­selves seems to be a threat to Putin’s regime.

Finland’s new government, like the old, is firmly in the NATO camp. Funny how fighting the Soviet Union/Russia repeatedly throughout the 20th Century will do that…