Finnish News Recap, first half of January: Cold Weather edition

The presidential race (the election is on January 28, mind) enters the final stretch. Thus far, it has seemed like the race would go down to two amiable liberals – center-right Alexander Stubb from the ruling National Coalition and the center-left Pekka Haavisto from the Greens. Lately, the Finns Party candidate Jussi Halla-aho, who has effectively courted controversy to stay in the eye of the media, has been rising, though it is unclear if this would be enough to clear the considerable advantage of the two main candidates, and Olli Rehn from the Centre also has his supporters. I’m intending to write a bit more on this in English before the election, though.

DEEP FREEZE: Right after the New Year Finland entered a period of cold temperatures, momentarily dipping under -40 C in the northernmost Finland. Southern regions saw a week of below -20 C temps in Southern Finland, as well. It’s been very snowy, too - most dramatically demonstrated by a 12-year-old boy and his mother killed by a rare avalanche when skiing. Finland is quite a bit colder than the rest of Europe but even so, the winters have tended to get warmer during the recent years. Temperatures like this, especially in sustained form, are still unusual.

What this also has meant was a jump in electricity prices, with prices momentarily hovering at 1-2 € per kWh (that’s right, full euros – if you were an electric heater with a large home, you could easily pay 40-50 € for one day’s use of electricity if you weren’t careful). In the current European situation, with the electricity crisis of early 2023 still in recent memory, any momentary jumps in price will of course lead to panic over the same situation returning – especially since the new nuclear plant, which Finland has relied on for a year, will be undergoing maintenance in March. Of course, as I wrote a year ago, a permanent resolution would require deliberate state planning.

It should be noted that even this cold weather has not completely stopped the refugee crisis, and there were some cases of individuals or small groups trying to push through the border at points that aren’t an entry point, ie. skiing through the forest. This has caused worries there’s going to be more of that when the weather gets warmer and the snows melt, but we’ll see. The issues of Russia/Ukraine war have generally aroused some angst of the possibility of an Ukrainian loss – something Zelensky specifically chose to warn Finland about.

HOSPITAL CUTS: The government’s big theme – apart from the war against the trade unions, which continues without any signs of things changing – has been austerity, but the workings of the Finnish system mean that it often takes quite a bit of time for actual cuts to percolate through in a way that affects peoples’ lives or is otherwise visible. Now this is happening for hospitals, or at least the initial steps have been taken. The bureaucrats at the Social and Health Care ministry have issued a long list of hospitals where services would be pared down a lot, including cutting out services like maternity ward from several of them, or ending round-the-clock service.

Of course, the government parties have already shot down several of these suggestions, but this is all a part of the usual game – it’s left to the bureaucrats of whatever ministry to draft out the initial harsh proposal so that the government can then magnanimously pare it down. It’s quite likely there are going to be some regional hospital pare-downs, and how they’ll fall will depend on how the internal horse-trading inside of the government goes. Presumably at least the Swedish-speaking areas will be spared – the Swedish People’s Party may not get much done, but this is the one thing they must handle, every time.

In any case, if anything, this should get the Centre Party – not the most anti-austerity party, by any stretch, but the party that has always fancied itself to be the party of smaller and less-inhabited regions, and a party whose voters these cuts are going to hurt – going. At the same time, many government parties – especially the ones with much of their support in the countryside, ie. all the others than the urbane National Coalition.

FBC DEFUNDING PROPOSAL: The Finnish Broadcasting Corporation (known in Finnish as Yleisradio, or Yle) has been a national institution for decades, still one of the main sources of news for Finns. For a long time, it has had a left-wing reputation compared to other medias, at least from the 1970s on, when the programming took a turn to the left during the leadership of Eino S. Repo (distant relation, incidentally). As such, it has been a long-time target for the Finnish right, chiefly the Finns Party.

Past Finns Party proposals have included limiting Yle’s editorial independence and specific complaints about specific programs, like “Pillupäiväkirjat” (“Pussy Diaries”), a feminist show about, well, you get the idea. The beginning of the year has revolved around the wish to defund Yle, as Jussi Halla-aho, the Finns Party’s presidential candidate, has suggested cutting away a quarter of Yle’s budget. It should be noted that this wouldn’t affect the government budget, since Yle, technically an independent state-owned corporation, is funded with a special, earmarked tax. Instead of budget cuts, thus, Halla-aho justified his demand by saying that Yle’s budget fosters nepotism and corruption.

Anyway, this has aroused a firestorm of criticism, as it is self-evident that one of the main reasons for these cuts is that Yle has been critical of the Finns Party – it’s arguable, of course, if it’s been critical of it in excess or just the normal amount, considering the many scandals associated with the party. Halla-aho got into an online spat with the chair of Yle’s board, Matti Apunen, assuredly not a leftist figur, and other Yle figures, as well. All of this, of course, is just a part of what has led to his recent rise in polls.

IN OTHER NEWS, basketball superstar Lauri Markkanen gets accolades, the saga of prosecuted politician Päivi Räsänen continues, and there’s been an on-off-again case against some kitschy paintings by celebrity Katariina Souri being accused of cultural appropiation against the Sámi indigenous minority (previously written about me here in other contexts).

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Winter_lapland.jpgv