The leader of the Finnish Conservative Party and Prime Minister-designate, Petteri Orpo, announced on Thursday June 15 that he had reached a government coalition agreement with three other parties, including the far-right party, after the April legislative elections. “I am proud of the good program and the outcome of the negotiations. All questions have been answered,” he told the press in Helsinki, in the presence of the leaders of the other three formations.
Petteri Orpo, head of the National Coalition (center right), has formed a government coalition with the Finns Party, the far-right formation that came second in the legislative elections with 20.1% of the vote, as well as two other small parties of right. The four parties have 108 of the 200 seats in Parliament.
Coalition talks, which usually last on average a month, have been longer due to differences, especially on climate policy and immigration. “We had disagreements on some points and I’m sure we still have some, but what unites us is that we want to put Finland in order,” the prime minister-designate stressed.
This is not the first time that such an alliance has been established between these political parties. The right has already governed with the Party of Finns (ex-True Finns) between 2015 and 2017, the date of a split within the eurosceptic formation which had resulted in a harder line. Members of coalitions in the Finnish Parliament traditionally inherit ministerial positions, and the second party in power usually gets the position of finance minister.
“A very difficult situation”
Mr. Orpo, whose main election promise was a 6 billion euro savings plan, said he would unveil his program on Friday. “Finland is in a very difficult situation. We had to look for savings everywhere,” he insisted.
But governing with the far right could prove “unpredictable”, said Mikko Majander, political scientist at the think tank Magma, to Agence France-Presse (AFP). Especially since their electoral base does not look favorably on the austerity policy promised by the Prime Minister-designate. According to Majander, other difficulties will relate to European affairs. “Especially when it comes to joint debt. Finland in general doesn’t want it, but the Party of Finns has a harder line than the pro-EU [European Union] national coalition,” he explained.
Indeed, hitherto allied with the European Parliament of the French National Rally or the Italian League within the Identity and Democracy group, the Party of Finns announced at the beginning of April that it would join the Eurosceptic group of European Conservatives and Reformists, which notably includes the Polish nationalist party Law and Justice and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia.
Established for more than twenty years in Finnish political life, the party is classified between the sovereignist right and the extreme right by political scientists. He is also a climate skeptic and wants to postpone Finland’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2035. A long-term campaigner for a “Fixit” – Finland’s exit from the EU -, the training has shifted in recent years from a mainly eurosceptic discourse to an anti-immigration priority.