Finnish News Recap, February (2nd half): Sweden in NATO edition

Stubb formally became the president today, thus closing that particular arc for now (of course he’s still a political figure as a President, but there’s no longer nothing interesting about it). Thus, I can return to other news.

LABOR MARKET STRUGGLE CONTINUES: I have written more on this topic for the People’s Policy Project so you can read more extensively what’s at stake there.

Thus far, the government has not budged. Its intent is not only setting heavy austerity measures, but also policies that would mean no longer negotiating with the trade union movement on legislation affecting labor matters, indeed, explicitly setting laws limiting the joint negotiation of wages, such as forbidding pay rises higher than those of the export sector industries.

Many prominent Finnish economists, and more moderate center-right politicians, have already sounded the alarm on the dangers of stability this struggle causes, especially considering the precarious situation in Europe regarding Russia. Nevertheless, the government’s intransigence implies it genuinely wishes to break the power of the labor movement for good, in accordance with the long-term wishes of the right wing and the business class.

Nevertheless, the strikes continue. Every now and then the buses and trains are out for few days, at least. The unions continue to have public support, even if the opposition’s challenge to the government on why the government refuses to negotiate with the unions did not succeed. The heightened general tone is evident from the Finns Party’s notorious Minister of Economic Affairs Wille Rydman calling the unions a mafia – a common charge among the Finnish right, indeed because the unions tend to be one of the few non-right-wing forces to get anything done.

SWEDEN JOINS NATO: Well, there are still a few steps on the way – but as the Hungarian parliament has assented to this joining, it is now expected that this will happen in near future, thus implicitly completing Finland’s NATO journey. The original intent was for Finland and Sweden to join together, but Finland then ended up joining before Sweden due to less complications related to NATO’s problem countries. Finnish decisionmakers justified this by stating they could best work to bring Sweden in from the inside, though it was always hazy what was actually being done to achieve this.

Sweden is a very traditional partner for Finland for cultural, geographic, and historical reasons (Finland having been a part of Sweden for centuries), but even more so, the armed capabilities of Finland and Sweden tend to complement each other. Finland has a strong army, particularly one of the largest artillery forces in Europe, the present war of course demonstrating very well the importance of artillery. Sweden, meanwhile, has a very pared-down army but a top-notch air force and navy, these also being quite important, as also ably demonstrated by the current war. Finland, then, is less proficient in those departments.

Meanwhile, in war-related news, Navalny’s death was commemorated by many in Finland (including many Orthodox churches holding memorial services for his memory), though some also made note of his less-than-pleasant statements on things like immigration and Crimea. In one of his last actions before relinquishing the presidency, president Niinistö joined other European leaders in saying that, contrary to how Macron’s statement has been interpreted, the West, Finland included, is not interested in sending troops to Ukraine. And, on that front, here is a story about the first Finn to die fighting there on Ukrainian side. (There has been a rare Finnish Donbass volunteer to have died earlier.)

SWEDISH PEOPLE’S PARTY TROUBLES: The People’s Party has chafed at times under the present government, though much more when the matters under debate were related to immigration than the present policy of austerity, which they share. Much of this has reflected on party leader Henriksson, widely considered to have brought the party to government and currently a minister, and her political fate. Thus far, it was considered likely that she would resign only after the European election, where she will probably be elected to the EP, but she recently announced that she’s stepping down in June in any case.

There will be several candidates for party leadership. The one announcing first out of bat was Alexander Adlercreuz, the x Minister, often considered the informal leader of the party’s liberal faction, a role he maintains by occasionally complaining in Twitter when the government does something not particularly image friendly. Other potential candidates, Otto Andersson, and Henrik Wickström, are not familiar to me apart from the name. Whoever wins, it does not seem likely to me that this will lead to large changes in governmental policy.

Meanwhile, in other political drama related to the European elections, the Swedish People’s Party’s chief governmental opponent The Finns Party refuses to let its current MEP Teuvo Hakkarainen on the list. While the given reason is Hakkarainen’s praise for Hungary’s Fidesz (something other Finns Party politicians, including the top ones, have in fact done in the past, but which is now not considered proper due to Orban’s pro-Russian stance), it’s also possible that the continually drunk Hakkarainen is just too much of a loose cannon, suitable for the previous populist iteration for the party, less so for the current doctrinaire nationalist one.

IN OTHER NEWS, it’s the disease season and this year an epidemic of scabies is causing problems for families, data-breaching hacker Aleksanteri Kivimäki was accidentally let loose and then recaptured and there was a bit of back-and-forth whether the Finnish Eurovision  entry would participate in the Eurovision due to Israeli participation. Many Finns have been shocked by a case a 4-year-old being tortured to death (in the area where I grew up, no less) going to courts and getting low sentences of 3 and 7 years for the parents who did it, though this is in line with Finland’s general sentencing practices.