A voter survey commissioned by the daily  Helsingin Sanomat  projects a win for the centre-right National Coalition Party (NCP) in Sunday's vote for the EU Parliament, followed by the populist Finns Party and the Social Democratic Party.
 Compared to results in the 2014 vote, the Greens are projected to make the most gains, however, with losses for the Centre Party. Support is also up from five years ago for the Finns Party and the SDP.
 Of the just over 2,000 voters polled May 6-18 in mainland Finland, 16.3 percent gave their backing to the Finns Party. If this actually translates into votes, the Finns Party will narrowly miss getting a third MEP elected. It would, though, have a representative waiting in the wings to take a seat if and when the UK withdraws from the European Union.
 At 20.1 percent, the NCP has a comfortable lead in the poll, but possibly its worst showing ever in EU Parliament elections. Traditionally, the NCP has been more popular with voters in these elections than in national elections.
 Devil in the details
 Most papers, including Tampere's  Aamulehti , report that  five-party talks aimed at forming a new government  here in Finland hit a bump on Monday over objections by the Left Alliance to selling off state-owned property to finance major transport infrastructure projects.
 That party's chair  Li Andersson  called a time-out Monday morning. Leaders in the talks declined to brief the media on the situation, leading to speculation that the talks had run aground. By early afternoon, all the parties were back at the table.
 Although the general framework for economic development seems to have been settled, Andersson did say that there are still more issues to be ironed out than appeared to be last week.
 As Aamulehti points out, Centre Party chair  Juha Sipilä  has backed the establishment of a state-financed project company to create high-speed rail services between Helsinki and Tampere, Helsinki and Turku, and from eastern Finland to the capital.
 One of the redline issues in government formation talks for the Centre Party is its demand for a balanced state budget by 2023.
 Schengen still ok, sort of
 The Kuopio-based  Savon Sanomat  carries a denial by Finns Party leader  Jussi Halla-aho  that his party is pushing for Finland to pull out of the open-border Schengen Area.
 Drawing on a dispatch by the STT Finnish News Agency, the paper reports that the Finns Party does want to change Schengen rules to make it easier for member states to impose border checks. Preventing illegal immigration, said Halla-aho, should be a valid reason to check passports at borders within the Schengen zone.
 At present, Schengen Area regulations allow for  temporary border checks under special circumstances . Both Denmark and Sweden imposed border controls in 2015, citing a massive influx of refugees.
 Halla-aho's remarks came after one of his party's EU Parliament election candidates,  Olli Kotro , gave an interview to the Kremlin-oriented Eurasia Daily saying that he supports Finland's exit from the Schengen Area, and described it as his party's position.
 Kotro also called for special visa arrangements between Finland and Russia.
 According to Savon Sanomat's article, Jussi Halla-aho stated that the Finns Party has had a consistent, negative stance on the issue of a visa-free arrangement between Finland and Russia.
 Red tape over pink house
 The tabloid  Ilta-Sanomat  is one of the papers that reports on a case of bureaucracy run wild in the small municipality of Vesilahti, about 30km south of Tampere, where homeowner  Katri Hakola  is facing a 5,000-euro fine for the offence of painting her house pale pink.
 Hakola bought her small wooden house in Vesilahti five years ago. Built in 1949, the house was in disrepair, and she decided to replace the siding and paint it. She filed notice of the renovations with the municipality and got to work.
 The house was already half painted when she received a notice that the colour she had chosen, pink, is not an approved colour in the building code for the type of house Hakola owns.
 She went ahead and finished it anyway, and filed for a permit to keep it that way. Her request was denied.
 Hakola says she's been told that her house "visibly stands out from its surroundings and attracts attention", in a "scenically sensitive area".
 Now, following a three-year battle, the local board of construction and environment has threatened her with a 5,000-euro fine if she doesn't repaint in a colour it approves. Hakola says she is planning an appeal, pointing out that official colour preferences are a guideline, not a law.
 The affair, which has gained wide-spread attention on social media, is becoming quite an embarrassment for local officials, says Ilta-Sanomat.
 Municipal director  Tuomas Hirvonen  made a surprise visit to the pink house over the weekend to talk with Hakola. He told the paper that while his visit did not mean that officials have changed their decision, progress is being made and a "certain process" has been set in motion.


The Innovation Award for Women 2019 was handed to professor  Heli Jantunen  from the University of Oulu for her work in a field known as electroceramics.
 The prize is given to Finnish women or groups of women who excel in their fields. The accolade includes a prize of 110,000 euros and awarded by Finnish Parliament. Deputy Speaker of Parliament  Paula Risikko  presented the award to Jantunen on Wednesday.
 Jantunen's work is groundbreaking and said to be the first in the world to introduce the production of electroceramics at lower temperatures than was previously possible. Electroceramics are commonly used in products like conductors, inductors, resistors, capacitors and other applications.
 However, until recently the production of electroceramics has required excessive amounts of heat to be integrated with electronic components. The method devised by Jantunen and her team enabled the production of electroceramics to be carried out at significantly lower temperatures.
 Method already in use
 The award process is handled by  Technology Academy Finland  (TAF), while parliament's chancellery commission selects the winner from the group of candidates.
 "The use of Jantunen's method can reduce energy requirements to 15–30% of the amounts previously needed, which cuts the costs associated with production equipment - easing the process while also being more eco-friendly," TAF said in a press release.
 "The production method has already been used successfully in making products like ceramic antennas."
 The group said Jantunen's method now makes it possible to produce small-scale, local and energy-efficient electroceramics which will lead to new material and technological possibilities.
 The award also commemorates the anniversary of universal suffrage on 1 June. The Innovation Award for Women was previously handed out in 2017 and 2018.


As voters in Finland prepare to head to the polls for the European election on Sunday, the conservative National Coalition Party (NCP) look set to retain their three MEP seats, according to Yle’s latest measure of voter sentiment.
 The NCP, led by outgoing finance minister  Petteri Orpo , have a proven track record in European elections and have been Finland’s biggest party in the European Parliament since 1999.
 Hot on their heels however are the Greens Party, helped by a 7.9 percent surge in support since the previous European elections in 2014; and the Finns Party, who are predicted to grow their share of the European vote by 4 percent.
 Sipilä's problems persist
 According to the survey, the biggest loser in the European elections will be the Centre Party, with an almost seven percentage point dip in support compared to the 2014 European elections. The party's struggles have not been helped by the loss of big name candidates such as  Olli Rehn ,  Paavo Väyrynen  and  Anneli Jäätteenmäki , all former MEPs.
 Such an outcome would see the party’s representation at the European Parliament shrink from three members to two, and would be another huge blow to outgoing PM  Juha Sipilä ’s party after a  poor showing at the recent Finnish parliamentary elections .
 Juha Sipilä and his Centre party face a tough EU election Markku Ulander / Lehtikuva
 The poll predicts that the Centre party's lost seat will most likely be picked up by the resurgent Greens, led by former EU special representative and two-time Finnish presidential candidate  Pekka Haavisto .
 The other parties currently with representatives in the European Parliament - the Social Democrat Party (2), the Swedish People's Party (1) and the Left Alliance (1) - are all expected to retain their seats.
 Low turnout
 The results will, however, depend heavily on voter turnout, which tends to be significantly lower for European elections than for Finnish parliamentary elections. This makes accurate estimations particularly difficult, according to  Tuomo Turja , Research Director at pollster Taloustutkimus.
 "These are elections in which a large majority of voters usually abstain," Turja says.
 At the last EU elections in 2014, voter turnout in Finland was just 39 percent, compared with a figure of 70 percent for the national elections held in 2015. Parliamentary elections held earlier this year saw 73 percent of eligible Finns make their way to polling stations, but it remains to be seen if this momentum will carry on into the EU elections.
 There are early signs of voter turnout being higher for this election, with an  increase in advance voting from the figures for 2014 .  Yle News also found voter appetite to be strong  when we took to the streets of Helsinki recently to gauge public opinion ahead of Sunday's election.


The nationalist Finns Party youth organisation has deleted a racist tweet posted on its Twitter account, calling it "ill-advised".
 "My tweet was thoughtless and I acted impulsively when the idea struck me. I later realised that it was misguided, but the damage was already done. I have learnt my lesson and moving forward, I will use better judgement when it comes to the organisation’s communications,” deputy chair  Toni Jalonen  said in a statement released on the Finns Party Youth website on Thursday. The statement did not include any specific apology.
 The populist party's youth group had posted an image of a dark-skinned couple holding a baby, with text urging people to vote for the Finns Party "if you don’t want Finland’s future to look like this". The photo was copied from a Facebook post by the European Parliament.
 Veiled criticism from party chair
 While the Finns Party chair  Jussi Halla-aho  did not explicitly comment on the since-deleted tweet, he wrote in a Facebook post that the party's goals do not include scrutinising the genetic heritage of humans or defining and limiting Finnishness.
 “Unfortunately, there is a small group of people in the youth organisation who do not seem to understand and accept the party's line and whose activities focus on harming the party and its youth organisation — for example, by attacking the party's own candidates.”  Halla-aho  wrote.
 Prosecutor General  Raija Toiviainen  also took a general stand on the issue by saying that in such cases, the first thing to be clarified is the motive. Toiviainen, who was on a business trip abroad, admitted she had not seen the tweet herself and could not follow the discussion around it. She said that when a message has a racist motive — that is, if the publisher of this message wanted to say that dark-skinned people do not belong to Finland and are somehow inferior — it is punishable by law.
 String of hate speech convictions
 Since the Finns Party was established in 1995,  a number of its politicians , including immigration hardliner Halla-aho, have been  convicted of online hate speech . The party split in 2017  when Halla-aho was elected chair , with co-founder  Timo Soini  and other more moderate party leaders leaving to form an ill-fated new party.
 Halla-aho's Finns Party came close to winning April's parliamentary election, earning just one seat fewer in the new parliament than the Social Democrats, who are now trying to form a government without them. That would leave Halla-aho as opposition leader.
 Several opinion polls after the election suggested that the Finns Party was the country's most popular, although  an Yle survey published on Thursday  showed slipping narrowly into third place.


Election result 2019 With 99.9% of votes counted NCP 20.8 % (3 seats) GREENS 16% (2 seats) SDP 14.6% (2 seats) FINNS 13.8% (2 seats) CEN 13.5% (2 seats) LEFT 6.9% (1 seat) SPP 6.3% (1 seat) CD 4.9% (0 seats)
 With nearly all votes counted (99.9 percent) in Sunday’s European Parliament elections, Finland’s Green Party was celebrating  major strides in the poll . The party ended the night with 16 percent of votes and picked up an additional 6.7 percent of ballots and another seat to send two MEPs to Brussels.
 It was the party’s best-ever Europarliament election result, eclipsing any outcome it had seen in parliamentary elections.
 "The Greens are now among the big parties," party chair  Pekka Haavisto  said as he reacted to the results.
 The Greens may have been the evening’s biggest winner, but the National Coalition Party led by  Petteri Orpo  topped the poll with 20.8 percent voter support to retain its three MEP seats, although voter enthusiasm in this election slipped by 1.8 percentage points. Earlier in the evening, Orpo reacted to advance voting results that showed his party at the top of the table.
 "This does look like an election win. It’s a very strong first place. Taking the parliamentary election result into consideration, you have to be satisfied."
 The Social Democratic Party also protected its two Europarliament seats, snapping up an additional 2.3 percent of votes in this election to close the night on 14.6 percent support. Earlier in the evening party chair  Antti Rinne  had characterised the advance voting result that put it in second place as an "election win".
 Centre trounced in second consecutive poll
 Juha Sipilä ’s Centre Party was once more repudiated by voters as the party haemorrhaged 6.1 percent of votes to lose one seat in the European Parliament. This means it will be represented by two MEPs in the next session. Sipilä had already departed the election watch and left vice chair  Katri Kulumni  to field questions about the party’s performance.
 "It is a sad ending to the [political] career of Juha Sipilä, whose star seemed so bright just a few years ago," Helsinki University world politics professor  Teivo Teivainen  remarked to Yle News as he harked back to the Centre’s  ignominious defeat in parliamentary elections  just about one month ago.
 The Finns Party, which was widely expected to dumbfound critics as it did during the parliamentary elections, picked up an additional one percent of votes and held on to its two MEP seats. However the result appeared to fall short of  the populist wave that political pundits anticipated  across the continent.
 "It looks like political parties were better able to mobilise voters who were concerned about issues like climate change and social exclusion and equality than the far-right was able to mobilise about closing borders," social commentator and writer  Maryan Abdulkarim  told Yle News. She noted that Green parties had posted big gains across the EU on election night.
 The Swedish People’s Party and the Left Alliance both kept their single MEP seats safe in this election, although the Left saw 2.4 percent of voters abandon it compared to a negligible 0.4 percent for the SPP. The parties closed off the evening with 6.4 and 6.9 percent voter support respectively.
 SDP's Heinäluoma the biggest vote magnet
 Candidates who secured Europarliament sets on Sunday included familiar names such as the Greens’  Heidi Hautala  and  Ville Niinistö , as well as  Laura Huhtasaari  and  Teuvo Hakkarainen  of the Finns Party in addition to the Centre’s  Mauri Pekkarinen ,  Henna Virkkunen  of the NCP and  Nils Torvalds  of the SPP.
 The SDP’s  Eero Heinäluoma  was the evening’s biggest vote magnet, with Ville Niinistö also proving to be a popular candidate, as well as Huhtasaari.
 Election officials’ initial estimate is that 42.7 percent of eligible voters turned out to cast their ballots in this year’s election, compared to five years ago, when the voter turnout was 39.1 percent. Based on the initial results, the average age of Finnish MEPs is 55 with not a single MEP under the age of 40 elected.
 Finland will seat 13 Europarliamentarians in Brussels, but if and when the UK exits the EU, a 14th member will be elevated. Based on the results so far, Christian Democratic Party chair  Sari Essayah  could nab the seat, however Yle’s forecast gives the position to the NCP’s  Eija-Riitta Korhola .


Finns voted for a strong European Union, said journalist  Joonas Kuikka  in  Turun Sanomat ’s analysis of the Europarliament election result.
 While internationally minded urbanites cast votes for a unified Europe and climate action,  convicted sex offender Teuvo Hakkarainen  of the Finns Party was the choice of stagnating remote areas, explained TS.
 Political parties in Finland who want to fortify the EU will be sending 11 MEPs to the 751-seat European legislature, compared to just two nationalist and eurosceptic Finns Party representatives. In an interview with  Helsingin Sanomat ,  Teija Tiilikainen , director of Finland’s Institute of International Affairs, said a new dividing line is emerging within the European Parliament between the promoters and sceptics of European integration.
 The National Coalition Party was the  biggest winner in Sunday’s election , attracting 20.8 percent of the vote while support for the Greens rose to 16 percent, handing them their best European poll result to date.
 Green wave hits home
 With Green parties posting their strongest ever showing in the European elections,  Helsingin Sanomat  speculated that Finland could see more  intense debate over climate policy  in the future, as Finnish political parties hold divergent views on concrete climate action.
 HS also contemplated Finland’s next pick for commissioner. Social Democratic Party chair  Antti Rinne , who is leading government formation talks, previously said it’s time for Finland to put forward a  woman commissioner . However, with SDP veteran  Eero Heinäluoma  drawing 130,000 votes, Rinne may have to reconsider this idea, according to the daily.
 Finland's 'Miracle on Ice'
 Residents celebrated Finland’s gold medal hockey title well into the morning hours on Monday, reported  Ilta-Sanomat . The newsstand tabloid said a wild carnival-like atmosphere enveloped downtown Helsinki--complete with fireworks--as 10,000 fans streamed into the streets after  Finland’s 3-1 win over Canada .
 9C and rain did not deter revellers from taking a dip in the Havis Amanda fountain. Tuomo Björksten / Yle
 The festivities passed off mostly peacefully, according to the paper, though some inebriated sports fans posed a danger to their own safety in the harbour area.
 Elated by Finland’s gold medal, some Finns decided to strip down for a celebratory dip in the Havis Amanda fountain in Helsinki’s Market Square. Tourists visiting the market area told Swedish-language daily Hufvudstadsbladet they wished Finns could be ‘ this happy every day .’
 Tampere daily  Aamulehti  reported that hockey fever took over state-owned railway company VR's digital displays as celebrations peaked.
 Iltalehti  said the Finnish Ice Hockey Association will on Monday provide further details regarding a national celebration to be held in the Lions’ honour.


Chancellor of Justice  Tuomas Pöysti  has let Defense Minister  Jussi Niinistö  off the hook with a reprimand for allegedly using "inappropriate" language to criticise constitutional law experts in a blog post he wrote in February 2019. Niinistö referred to experts as "constitutional law Talibans" among other things in the scathing post.
 However, the matter was resolved with Pöysti reprimanding Niinistö, with the Chancellor noting that he had no reason to suspect that the minister had committed an offence and that he didn't see any reason to initiate a preliminary investigation.
 In his statement, Pöysti also justified his position on the matter by stating that the constitution sets a higher threshold for prosecution in the case of a minister. He said the terms used by Niinistö were in some respects inappropriate and personal and pointed out that the minister could have criticised the activities of constitutional experts without resorting to such language.
 Niinistö's attack against experts
 In February, Jussi Niinistö labelled members of the Constitutional Law Committee "constitutional law Talibans" who "mask their own ideological goals under the guise of expertise." The minister was referring to their experts' criticism of  draft military intelligence laws,  which he said was unjustified and "damaging to the security of the fatherland and its citizens."
 The matter first came to light in February during a parliamentary question time session, when Prime Minister  Juha Sipilä  said he did not support Niinistö’s statements.
 "Minister Jussi Niinistö has presented his own views in his blog and they do not reflect the position of the government," Sipilä said at the time. The PM had confirmed that a complaint had been filed with the Chancellor of Justice to look into the matter.
 Niinistö also made headlines earlier this year for  criticizing a government-commissioned study  that investigated the activities of  Finns serving in the Wiking Division of German’s Waffen-SS  in the 1940s.


Like many people across Europe on Sunday, Finnish citizens  went to the polls  to elect representatives to the European Parliament. The overall voter turnout was 42.7 percent, and the Greens made the biggest gains, while the Centre Party suffered major losses.
 SDP party veteran and former government minister  Eero Heinäluoma , former Greens chair and one-time environment minister  Ville Niinistö  and Finns Party frontwoman  Laura Huhtasaari  bagged the most votes in the election.
 The 42-year-old  Ville Niinistö  – a nephew of President  Sauli Niinistö  but no immediate relation to defence minister  Jussi Niinistö  – led the Greens from 2011 to 2017 as it gained popularity to become one of the four or five largest parties.
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 Ville Niinistö All Over Press / Jarno Kuusinen
 Heidi Hautala , 63, was another vote magnet for the Greens. She stood as a presidential candidate in 2000 and 2006, chaired the Greens in the late 1980s and helped establish Finland’s first vegetarian restaurant. EU think tank Votewatch named Hautala Finland’s most influential MEP, having served in the EU legislature for 15 years.
 Hautala was at the centre of a political storm in Finland earlier this decade amidst allegations of  abuses of power  when she served as minister for state ownership steering. At the time she also made a public apology for paying off the books for domestic work while serving on a ministerial working group combating the informal economy.
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 Heidi Hautala. EU
 Eero Heinäluoma , 63, had a long career with labour confederation SAK before moving on to holding a number of key positions in the Social Democratic Party. The former speaker of parliament and finance minister said that while he supports EU-wide cooperation on a number of issues, he does not want to see the EU evolve in a federalist direction nor does he agree with debt solidarity across the bloc.
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 Eero Heinäluoma. Yle
 SDP politician  Mia-Kumpula Natri , 47, secured a second term in the European Parliament and has called for the EU to lead the battle against climate change. However she said the EU should ensure that climate action doesn’t widen disparities in welfare or income across the region.
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 Mia-Kumpula Natri. Kimmo Brandt / AOP
 Forty-year-old  Laura Huhtasaari  who has run on a eurosceptic platform in numerous elections will now also be heading to Brussels. A classroom teacher by training, Huhtasaari has been dogged by reports that  she plagiarised major parts of her Master's thesis .
 The Finns Party’s former presidential candidate is a creationist, climate change sceptic and has also said she wants to limit immigration from outside Europe.
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  Laura Huhtasaari. Derrick Frilund / Yle
 Three-term Finnish MP  Teuvo Hakkarainen  will join his party colleague Laura Huhtasaari in Belgium, where they will form an alliance with Italy’s  Matteo Salvini  who is spearheading an ultra-right alliance.
 Hakkarainen has had many run-ins with the law and is  no stranger to controversy . Last year a court found him  guilty of sexual assault  against a fellow MP during a Finns Party Christmas event at the Parliament.
 Hakkarainen has a record of seven criminal convictions since 1985, for offenses including chopping down trees illegally while drunk, stealing silverware and wine from a church, drink driving, speeding and  incitement against an ethnic group  for anti-Muslim comments on Facebook in 2016.
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 Teuvo Hakkarainen. Jarno Kuusinen / AOP
 Former Yle journalist and National Collation Party politician  Petri Sarvamaa , 58, will also return to his seat in the EU legislature. Sarvamaa, who supports Finland's Nato membership, said he wants to intensify European cooperation on matters of security and integration.
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 Petri Sarvamaa. Mathieu Cugnot / EP
 NCP politician  Henna Virkkunen , 46, will also continue as an MEP for a second term. Like Sarvamaa, she backs Finland applying for membership in Nato and wants to see the EU work towards an energy union.
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 Henna Virkkunen. Jarno Tiihonen / Yle
 Sixty-year-old  Sirpa Pietikäinen  of the NCP also renewed her mandate in the Parliament, where she has served since 2008 when she replaced  Alexander Stubb  following his appointment as Finland's foreign minister.
 First elected to the national parliament in 1983, the veteran MP briefly left politics after being caught driving under the influence in 2003.
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 Sirpa Pietikäinen. Yle
 Mauri Pekkarinen , 71, a ten-term Centre Party parliamentarian and thrice a former minister, also won a seat in the European Parliament on Sunday. His nickname in Finnish politics is "The Parliament Terrier," and is also an avid long-distance runner.
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 Mauri Pekkarinen. Jussi Nukari / Lehtikuva
 Pekkarinen will be joined by fellow Centre Party member  Elsi Katainen , 52, representing the electoral district of Northern Savonia (formerly Kuopio). Katainen's family owns a dairy farm.
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 Elsi Katainen. Jarno Kuusinen / AOP
 Former reporter, 42-year-old  Silvia Modig  of the Left Alliance also nabbed a seat.
 Her election platform called for the EU to step up efforts to prevent interstate tax evasion. Modig has also made efforts to raise awareness of youth marginalisation, saying she was also at risk of falling on the fringes of society when growing up.
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 Silvia Modig. Nella Nuora / Yle
 Another former journalist,  Nils Torvalds , 73, of the Swedish People’s Party, also hung onto his seat in the EU Parliament as a representative of the Swedish People's Party.
 A former member of the Finnish Communist Party, Torvalds has called for the bloc to streamline research and innovation policy. His son Linus Torvalds may, however, be more well known around the world, as he was the creator of the open-source computer operating system Linux.
 Nils Torvalds. Derrick Frilund / Yle


Finnish daily  Helsingin Sanomat (HS)  carried a multi-page feature on the massive celebrations that lit up Helsinki on Monday night, following Finland’s gold medal win over Canada 3-1 at the Ice Hockey World Championships in Bratislava on Sunday.
 According to HS, 50,000 people gathered in Helsinki’s Kaisaniemi Park for a free concert and festivities featuring the new reigning world champion team the Lions ( Leijonat ), Finnish President  Sauli Niinistö  and vocalist  Paula Vesala  who sang a rendition of "Finlandia," an unofficial Finnish anthem composed by Sibelius in 1899.
 HS wrote that when the Lions team arrived in Kaisaniemi, the crowd started cheering and chanting “ Mörko ” for Team Finland captain  Marko “Mörkö” Anttila  who scored two goals in the match. Team Finland coach  Jukka Jalonen , goalkeeper  Kevin Lankinen  and player  Kaapo Kakko  also received boisterous cheers from the crowd.
 “You are dear, golden brothers. You have just made Finnish sports history. These matches will not be forgotten,” said Niinistö as he addressed the crowd, writes HS. Niinistö also joked about the fact that team captain Anttila’s popularity has surged so much that many people have suggested he should be the country’s president. Niinistö went on to say that thankfully Sunday night's amazing win didn’t take place before the presidential elections.
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 Nearly 50,000 people gathered in Kaisaniemi Park to celebrate Team Finland's win. Seppo Samuli / Lehtikuva
 And back to business, temporarily
 On a political note,  HS also reports that Social Democratic Party leader Antti Rinne , who's leading government formation talks, said negotiations on reaching a financial framework for the new government are coming together.
 He spoke with the daily late Monday night at Helsinki’s House of Estates, where politicians convened throughout the evening. According to Rinne, "about ten questions" still need to be answered (he wouldn’t elaborate on them) but said that the incoming government's programme should be ready by Wednesday night as "revenue and expenditures are in balance."
 And back to the celebrations
 Tabloid  Iltalehti  also ran extensive coverage of festivities on Monday following Finland's hockey victory.
 One of the paper's quirkier features was a piece about how all of the churches in Helsinki chimed their bells at 4 pm on Monday to welcome the winning team who'd just landed at Helsinki Airport on their return from the match in Bratislava. According to Iltalehti, the idea came from Helsinki vicar  Juha Rintamäki .
 Finland's ice hockey win and the ensuing festivities also caught the attention of regional Finnish dailies, including  Lapin Kansa , the main newspaper of Lapland.
 One of its lead stories was headlined: "Marko Anttila’s father knows how his son will calm down following the championship buzz: 'He will disappear to the cottage, turn off his phone, and heat up the sauna.'"
 According to the paper, who interviewed Anttila's father, even the captain of Team Finland needs to take it easy and remain humble in order to maintain work-life balance.


Helsinki police have launched a preliminary investigation into  a tweet shared and later deleted by the youth wing  of the nationalist Finns Party during the European Parliament election campaign.
 Helsinki police investigation lead Chief Inspector,  Pekka Hätönen , said that the department decided to begin the probe a few days ago.
 "We discussed the matter with a prosecutor on Friday. We decided to begin the investigation," Hätönen told Yle.
 The tweet depicted an immigrant family and bore the text, "Vote for the Finns Party if you don’t want Finland’s future to look like this."
 Last week, Finns Party youth arm deputy chair  Toni Jalonen  owned up to posting the tweet, which fired up social media.
 Police considering two suspects
 Hätönen said that investigators have two suspects under consideration. One is the individual who posted the tweet, while the other suspect commented on it.
 "In practice it’s a pretty straightforward investigation. We will question two people," the police chief remarked, adding that the offence is being investigated as ethnic agitation.
 Finns Party chair  Jussi Halla-aho  previously said that the party’s youth organisation is a small group who "are in the wrong party".
 This year the youth arm received 115,000 euros in state support. Following the youth wing member's tweet, the Ministry of Education and Culture - which oversees that funding - has said that it is considering what action to take. Ministries have the discretion to withhold funding for a group they support if it's found that the organisation has broken the law.
 The youth wing has since said that the tweet was "ill-advised" and "thoughtless". Police said that they hoped to wrap up the investigation in a few weeks.
 Several of the party's politicians, including Halla-aho, have been suspected or  convicted of hate speech  in the past.


Finland's economy grew more slowly than expected in the first part of the year, mostly due to a dip in private consumption. If the trend keeps up, Finland's next government could have a hard time financing its proposed economic blueprint.
 According to preliminary data released by Statistics Finland on Wednesday, gross domestic product (GDP) adjusted for working days grew by 1.2 percent in the January through March period, compared with a year earlier.
 Growth from the previous quarter was just two-tenths of a percent.
 The figures represent quite a drop from those predicted by Statistics Finland just a few weeks earlier, when it projected that GDP growth in the early part of the year at 2.2 percent. According to Wednesday's figures, GDP growth was actually a full percentage point lower.
 "A major factor in explaining this seems to be private consumption, which shrank since the end of last year and compared to a year earlier," Danske Bank's chief economist  Pasi Kuoppamäki  told the Finnish News Agency STT.
 In January through March, private consumption declined by 1.2 percent from the previous quarter and by 0.6 percent from a year earlier. Kuoppamäki said that areas such as retail sales and automotive sales are showing downward trends.
 "Households have been slightly cautious. We know that the employment situation has been reasonably good, the wage level rose in the first quarter by 2.5 percent and therefore household purchasing power has been rising steadily," he notes.
 Gov programme assumes "normal growth"
 Social Democratic Party chair  Antti Rinne , who is wrapping up negotiations on forming a new cabinet, said on Tuesday that the next government will expand permanent expenditures by around 1.2 billion euros annually. Rinne said the boost in spending will be bankrolled by employment measures, tax elements and reappropriations as well as selling off state ownership.
 Rinne predicted that as long as growth conditions remain normal, the state will not take on extra debt and employment will reach 75 percent during the next four-year legislative term.
 According to Statistics Finland, that rate stood at 71.2 percent in April.
 As Kuoppamäki sees it, these latest figures throw cold water on Rinne's predictions.
 "GDP growth is clearly below the level that was expected," he said.
 In an economic forecast last month, the Finance Ministry predicted that private consumption would continue to grow strongly this year, a prospect that now looks unlikely.
 "This underlines the fact that the government negotiations must bolster private consumption," Kuoppamäki said.
 Rinne was expected to announce the status – and possible conclusion – of government formation talks on Wednesday afternoon.


Social Democratic Party chair  Antti Rinne  said he expects to finalise the next government's programme on Friday.
 Rinne, who has been negotiating with coalition partners since the  conclusion of general elections  last month, said meetings will convene on Friday at Helsinki's historic House of Estates to iron out final details.
 "On Friday we'll address any unresolved issues and make sure everyone is on board with the text, and after that it's all done," Rinne summed up.
 The Finance Ministry is poring over the proposed agenda's figures on Thursday to ensure that numbers add up. Political party representatives involved in government formation talks are meanwhile taking a day off on Thursday, a public holiday as Finland observes Ascension Day.
 The next government plans to expand permanent expenditures by around  1.2 billion euros annually . Rinne has said the boost in spending will be bankrolled by employment measures, tax elements and reappropriations as well as selling off state ownership.


Several domestic dailies on Friday reported on a grisly find in the Spanish city of Mijas on the Costa del Sol. Locals discovered the dead bodies of a Finnish man and woman in an apartment,  Spanish sources  said.
 Tabloid Ilta-Sanomat quote Spanish papers, which indicated   that neighbours contacted police over a bad smell emanating from the apartment in the Las Lagunas area. Emergency services found the bodies of a 26-year-old woman and a 34-year-old man on arrival.
 One local paper wrote  that a preliminary medical examiner's report suggested drugs may be involved in the deaths. Blood was also found in the apartment hallway, IS reported.
 The relationship between the two deceased people and the Spanish apartment's Finnish owner is not yet clear.
 IS said that autopsies will be performed on the bodies on Friday. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs told IS early on Friday that they had not yet received word of the deaths.
 Minister: "Fund education, not free books"
 The next government, still forming under the leadership of Social Democrat chair  Antti Rinne , vowed on Thursday that compulsory schooling in future would extend from primary education (grades 1-9) through to upper secondary education or vocational school. MPs from the National Coalition Party (NCP), which appears to be heading to the opposition opposed the plan, with caretaker Education Minister  Sanni Grahn-Laasonen  tweeting her criticism of the proposal,  according to Tampere-based daily Aamulehti .
 "It would be more effective to increase support and strengthen daycare and primary education. Fix the foundation first! Fund education, not free books," Grahn-Laasonen tweeted.
 The minister was referring to the required reading and studying materials for upper secondary education, which are known to be  costly for students and their families . Rinne's SDP, the Left Alliance and the Greens all campaigned on a platform of making upper secondary education free, including text books and other learning materials, the paper noted.
 Another NCP MP,  Timo Heinonen  took to Twitter to say that extending compulsory basic education to around the age of 20 "would not be easy".
 AL noted that the outgoing government headed by  Juha Sipilä  slashed Finland's education budget by some 690 million euros, nixing about 250 million from upper secondary education.
 Struggling farms going under
 Iltalehti reported Friday  that many Finnish farms are declaring bankruptcy, according to regional paper Maaseudun Tulevaisuus, as dairy entrepreneurs who invested in their farms in previous years when the price of milk was high are now facing dire straits and having to shutter their gates, in turn pushing cattle-breeders to the brink of their financial resources.
 Agriculture expert  Osmo Autio  from financial firm Wikli Group told IL that he has had to file about one bankruptcy notice per week for failing farms – and that the worst may be to come.
 "Our company's backlog is about 12-13 cases long at the moment, all of them going under. Bankruptcy will be declared by the taxman, creditors or the entrepreneurs themselves," Autio said.
 Autio emphasised that the farms facing closure are not small or badly run businesses; some of the dairy farms seeking financial guidance produce an average yield of more than 10,000 kg of milk products a year.
 IL also wrote that fur farms are in for grim prospects in the future as well, as fur operations are often a side business for farmers.
 Yle News has  reported  on the  woes  of  farmers  for  many years . The price paid to Finnish farmers for raw milk  fell by 12.5 percent  in 2015, a dip caused in part by Russian sanctions on EU products and a fall in consumer spending power.


On Saturday outgoing Centre Party chair and prime minister  Juha Sipilä ’s administration became Finland’s longest-serving as Social Democratic Chair  Antti Rinne  continues painstaking negotiations to form a new government following  parliamentary elections in April .
 As of Sunday, Sipilä’s government had served for 1,466 days – albeit partly in a caretaker role -- eclipsing the previous record held by  Paavo Lipponen ’s first and second administrations, 1,464 days.
 Juha Sipilä became prime minister on 29 May, 2015 after  leading the Centre Party to election victory  in that year’s general election. At the time the former business leader was seen as a breath of fresh air who would bring the efficiency of private enterprise to the public sector.
 Shortest term affected by illness
 A series of eye-watering  spending cuts  and unpopular  labour market reforms  soon drew widespread condemnation and voters repudiated the Centre in both parliamentary and  Europarliament elections  this year, making Sipilä a one-term premier.
 Just weeks prior to the general election, Sipilä tendered  his government’s resignation  on 8 May, after failing to push through the administration’s flagship reform to social and health care services.
 Finland’s shortest-lived administration lasted from 8 August 1944 to 21 September 1944 and was led by National Coalition Party politician Anders Verner Hackzell. He was chosen to form a government of public servants and other officials with the aim of signing a peace treaty with the then-Soviet Union, however he never completed the negotiations due to illness.
 The first government in Finland to exceed 1,000 days was that of Toivo Mikael Kivimäki of the National Progressive Party, which held office from 14 December 1932 to 7 October 1936, a total of 1,394 days.
 See the full listing of  Finnish governments and their terms in office here .


A citizens' initiative on creating a law to specifically ban the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Finland is headed to the new Parliament for consideration by MPs. The initiative garnered a total of 61,266 signatures by the beginning of last October, but already reached the required  50,000 signature mark  a few months earlier.
 The document will be handed to MPs by humanitarian advocacy group World Vision Finland'sprogramme director  Annette Gothóni  and expert advisor  Ujuni Ahmed , as well as the managing director of fashion textile firm Finlayson,  Jukka Kurttila .
 According to Finnish law, the act of genital mutilation is already considered to be aggravated assault. But Gothóni said a more specific law should be created.
 "A separate law [on banning FGM] would be important for preventative work and changing the attitudes of parents [who might be considering carrying it out on their girls]. If the practice was specifically forbidden by law, it would be easier for various authorities to discuss the matter [with parents] before it happens," Gothóni said.
 "The problem is that parents who cut their girls do not consider the mutilation to be assault. The current legislation is inadequate. A separate law is needed to protect girls," Ahmed added.
 FGM still common
 An estimated 200 million girls and women around the world have undergone FGM, with more than three million girls facing the practice every year, according to the  World Health Organisation .
 Late last year, the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) estimated as many as 3,000 girls in Finland faced the risk of being subjected to FGM. The public health watchdog estimated  more than 10,000 girls and women  resident in Finland have already undergone the procedure.
 Even before receiving the citizens' initiative on the matter,  the incoming government  is reportedly already making plans to ban FGM in new legislation.


SDP chair  Antti Rinne , 56, was sworn in as prime minister on Thursday to lead Finland's 75th government. Rinne, whose Social Democratic Party narrowly won April's election, is a former finance minister and union boss.
 He was approved as the new premier by a vote of 111 to 74 in a Parliamentary session that began around noon, with Rinne serving as interim Speaker of Parliament. Fourteen of the new MPs were absent.
 All the 'no' votes came from the three main opposition parties, with the sole MP from the Liike Nyt (Movement Now) group voting with the five government parties.
 Story continues after photo
 Rinne was elected by a 111-74 vote. Jussi Nukari / Lehtikuva
 After the vote, Rinne and the 18 other cabinet ministers walked to the Presidential Palace to meet with President  Sauli Niinistö .
 At 2pm, the president approved the resignation of outgoing PM and Centre Party chair  Juha Sipilä  and then formally appointed Rinne as the new prime minister. The new ministers were then sworn in, using either Finnish or Swedish and either a Bible or law book, according to their own preferences.
 Earlier on Thursday, Rinne met with Niinistö and was formally appointed to form a new government.
 Story continues after photo
 Rinne met with Niinistö on Thursday morning. Jussi Nukari / Lehtikuva
 On Friday MPs will elect the new Speaker of Parliament and two deputy speakers. The new Speaker is expected to be former Centre PM  Matti Vanhanen , 63. Former minister  Tuula Haatainen  of the SDP is to continue as the first deputy speaker while  Juho Eerola  of the Finns Party will likely become the second deputy speaker.
 Comfortable majority in Parliament
 Rinne aims to lead a five-party centre-left coalition government for the next four years. Besides the SDP and Centre, it includes the Greens, the Left Alliance and the Swedish People's Party.
 The cabinet parties have a comfortable 117-seat majority in the 200-seat Parliament.
 However they will likely face pressures from within as well as from the two main opposition parties, the right-leaning Finns Party and National Coalition Party. They each have nearly as many MPs as the SDP, wit the top three parties holding 40, 39 and 38 seats respectively. The nationalist Finns Party, led by immigration hardliner  Jussi Hallo-aho , is just one seat shy of being the largest and has been leading opinion polls since the election.
 One holdover from Sipilä cabinet
 About 58 percent of the ministers in Rinne's cabinet are women. That is up sharply from the previous Sipilä government, but still short of the 60 percent ratio in Vanhanen's 2007-10 cabinet.
 Story continues after photo
 Cabinet ministers walked to the House of the Estates on Helsinki's warmest day of the year so far. Pekka Tynell / Yle
 The new ministers range in age from 31 to 61. The youngest is Minister of Economic Affairs  Katri Kulmuni , a second-term MP and deputy Centre Party chair from Tornio in Finnish Lapland, while the eldest is Foreign Minister  Pekka Haavisto , an MP, Greens chair and former minister from Helsinki.
 The only minister to carry over from Sipilä's cabinet to Rinne's is Centre Party MP  Annika Saarikko . She moves from being Minister of Family Affairs and Social Service to Minister of Science and Culture, a newly-renamed post that operates under the Ministry of Education.
 Lintilä represents Centre at press conference
 In the late afternoon, the new government held a brief press conference at the House of the Estates, where they had hashed out their agenda over the past month.
 Story continues after photo
 Henriksson, Lintilä, Rinne, Haavisto and Andersson meet the press. Pekka Tynell / Yle
 Four of the five parties were represented by their chairs, while the Centre was represented by Finance Minister  Mika Lintilä . Party chair Sipilä, who is  to be replaced as leader in September , declined to take a post in the new government or parliament.
 Besides Rinne and Haavisto, the two other party chairs in the cabinet are  Anna-Maja Henriksson  of the Swedish People's Party, who returns as Justice Minister, and  Li Andersson  of the Left Alliance, who is now Education Minister.
 The ministers only answered a couple of questions about the timing of eldercare reforms and attaining their 75-percent employment target, giving rather non-committal answers. They then headed for the traditional 'class picture' photograph session and coffee reception.
 5:56pm: Updated throughout and corrected date of Speakers' election


From a total of 19 ministerial portfolios in the new Finnish cabinet, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) will hold seven and the Centre will occupy five. The Greens will hold three while the Left Alliance and Swedish People's Party (SPP) will have two each. The names of the ministers are to be announced later.
 The  incoming government will put an end to eight years of austerity , adding 1.2 billion euros to government expenditure. Spending will be offset by higher tobacco, alcohol and fuel taxes.
 The Social Democrats, with  their razor-thin victory  in April’s general election, had their first pick of ministerial portfolios, naturally taking over the premiership and gaining seven portfolios, including those for European Affairs, Local Government and state ownership steering, Development and Foreign Trade, Family Affairs and Social Services, Transport as well as Labour.
 The Centre Party, which is stepping down as the prime minister’s party following a  crushing defeat in the election , will take over five portfolios: Finance, Economy, Defense, Agriculture and a new combined Science and Culture portfolio, under the Education Ministry.
 Juha Sipilä , premier of the outgoing centre-right government, said he’d be following the new government's employment targets from the back benches. He explained later that he will not be a minister before leaving his post as party chair in September.
 SPP chair  Anna-Maja Henriksson  said she didn’t see any obstacles to Finland  reaching its goal of 75-percent employment  as it has been achievable in the other Nordic countries.
 Finland’s next foreign minister will be from the Greens. The party, which saw it's  best ever EU election resul t in last month's Europarliament elections, will also run the Environment and Interior ministries.
 Green Party chair  Pekka Haavisto  called the environmental agenda the "most ambitious climate plan globally," aiming for carbon neutrality by 2035, though the government did not provide concrete plans at its press conference at Helsinki's central library Oodi on Monday. Ahead of government formation talks, Rinne said all parties forming the new government must commit to keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, in line with recommendations from the  UN climate group IPCC .
 The Left Alliance will oversee the ministries of Education and Social Affairs and Health, which could signal a turnaround in recent efforts to  open the Finnish healthcare sector  to private providers.  Li Andersson , Left Alliance chair, said Finland would roll back a  contentious 'activation model'  and make upper secondary school materials free for students. The new administration wants to  extend compulsory education to include upper secondary and vocational schooling .
 The Swedish People’s Party will hold on to the Justice Ministry while also picking up the equality minister's post.
 Referring to the five-group coalition and her childhood memories of libraries, Henriksson quipped, “everything usually ends well for the Famous Five, and that’s what happened here,” she said referring to children’s adventure novel series from the 1940s and '50s.


Speaking at Helsinki's main library on Monday morning, Prime Minister-designate  Antti Rinne  announced that his new  government will include 19 ministers  from five parties – but did not reveal the names of the new cabinet members. They will likely be confirmed by the parties on Tuesday.
 The ministers will most likely include the party chairs who flanked Rinne at the event, except for outgoing PM  Juha Sipilä , whose Centre Party is continuing in government despite suffering dramatic defeats in April's parliamentary election. After that, Sipilä announced that he would step down when the party elects a new leader at an extraordinary conference in September.
 "I led my own party to a major electoral defeat, so I am not available for a position of responsibility, not as a minister or speaker of Parliament. This is my way of taking responsibility in this situation," Sipilä said on Monday. The Centre has been handed five portfolios: Finance, Economy, Defense, Agriculture and a new combined Science and Culture portfolio, under the Education Ministry.
 SDP deputy chair  Sanna Marin , who led the party through much of last winter's election campaign  while Rinne was on sick leave , is on the other hand widely expected to hold a cabinet seat. The SDP will hold seven portfolios, including Labour, European Affairs, Local Government and state ownership steering, Transport, Development and Foreign Trade, Family Affairs and Social Services.
 SPP in justice, equality and Nordic posts
 After the event,  Swedish People's Party (SPP) chair   Anna-Maja Henriksson  said that MP  Thomas Blomqvist   from Raseborg , western Uusimaa, will be minister of equality and Nordic cooperation. Yle has learned that Henriksson will resume her old post of justice minister, which she held in two cabinets between 2011 and 2015.
 Left Alliance chair  Li Andersson , the youngest of the five government party chairs at 32, told Yle that she is interested in the position of education minister. Like the SPP, her party has been allocated two seats in the cabinet. Besides education, it will oversee social affairs and health.
 Greens take foreign affairs, environment and climate portfolios
 Greens chair  Pekka Haavisto , a former environment minister and UN official, is widely expected to become the new foreign minister. That role will be key as Finland takes on the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union on 1 July. His party will hold three seats in the new cabinet, with one likely to be the renamed post of Minister for the Environment and Climate.
 According to the daily Helsingin Sanomat, former Greens MP  Oras Tynkkynen  hopes to take that post, despite losing his seat in Parliament in April, only earning a spot as a substitute. Tynkkynen, a former leader of the Greens parliamentary delegation, was Advisor on Climate Policy to former Centre Party PM  Matti Vanhanen . He is now a  senior advisor on the carbon-neutral circular economy  at the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra and a Tampere city councillor. Finnish government ministers are usually – but not necessarily – members of parliament.
 The Greens are to chose their ministers on Tuesday. MP  Maria Ohisalo ,  the only candidate to take over from Haavisto  as party chair later this month, is also expected to take on a cabinet post. The Greens' third seat will be Minister of the Interior.


Tuesday's papers lead with stories reviewing the new five-party coalition's proposed programme and goals, which include making the country carbon-neutral by 2035 and significantly increasing spending by 1.2 billion euros.
 Finnish daily  Helsingin Sanomat (HS)  runs several articles looking at what’s in store, including a two-page spread entitled "Will the parties keep their promises?"
 The daily examines both pre-election promises and what was unveiled on  Monday at Helsinki's main library Oodi  where Prime Minister-designate  Antti Rinne  (SDP) and coalition party chairs  Pekka Haavisto  (Greens),  Juha Sipilä  (Centre),  Li Andersson  (Left) and  Anna-Maja Henriksson  (SPP) revealed the draft agenda.
 Promises, promises
 According to HS, one of the details that has been much mulled over by the press is Rinne’s pre-election vow on May Day 2018. "I promise an additional 100 euros a month to those who receive a pension that's less than 1,400 euros a month."
 HS writes about the new government's proposal to increase the pension of those who receive less than 1,000 euros a month by 50 euros.
 "Fifty euros isn’t 100 euros," writes HS, but goes on to point out that, "Rinne didn’t promise 100 euros in the first year, he often (went on to) emphasise that the top-up would be made according to what the budget would allow."
 "Too good to be true"
 HS also ran a straw poll of people on the street about the incoming government's plans.
 "In theory the new government budget sounds very good. But we’ll still have to wait and see where all the money comes from and how realistic the programme really is at the end of the day,"  Ella Salminen , a 24-year-old student, told HS.
 Meanwhile,  Toivo Koivisto , 74, told the paper that presenting the new government plan in a library "was an awesome spectacle" but that "the first thought that came to mind was that this is too good to be true."
 Effects of the sin tax
 Tampere-based daily  Aamulehti   also explored the proposed plan at length, including a concrete list of what will change if it takes effect.
 Examples of the so-called sin tax will most affect those with unhealthy habits. For example, according to Aamulehti, the increased cost of a packet of cigarettes by 1.8 euros would increase the annual sum for pack-a-day smokers by 657 euros.
 Other examples include the increased cost of sugary soft drinks – a 1.5-litre bottle would go up by 10 cents increasing the annual cost for 1.5 litre-a-day soda drinkers by 36.50 euros a year.
 Meanwhile, added taxes on a bottle of wine ( .75 litre) would increase the cost by a total of 10.92 euros per year, based on consumption of a bottle of wine per week.
 Far north cabinet hopefuls
 And at the top of Finland, the main daily of Finnish Lapland,  Lapin Kansa , leads with a story speculating whether Lapland will get its own minister in the new cabinet with the region’s  Markus Lohi  and  Katri Kulmuni   of the Centre Party as the strongest candidates.
 HS, Aamulehti and Lapin Kansa also carried news of the five-party leaders' choice of the nickname "the Famous Five", which brings to mind British writer  Enid Blyton ’s popular children’s book series of the same name.
 Many papers speculate on whether all of the Famous Five’s ambitious plans will be realised. Avid readers may recall that the Famous Five’s adventures all took place while the kids were on holiday.


A past conviction for assault and sexual harassment against  freshly-minted Finns Party MEP   Teuvo Hakkarainen  has become enforceable, the Helsinki Court of Appeal ruled on Tuesday.
 This means that Hakkarainen will have to pay the 80-day fine for the offences, which were committed in December 2017.
 A lower court  had convicted the then-Finns Party MP  and sentenced him to a 45-day fine for assault and sexual harassment of National Coalition Party MP  Veera Ruoho.
 However, the appeal court stiffened the sentence to an 80-day fine, which based on Hakkarainen’s income at the time, amounted to 5,440 euros. The lower court had also ordered the former sawmill owner to pay Ruoho an additional 1,400 euros in damages.
 During the district court trial, prosecutor  Eija Velitski  had called on the court to hand down a two-month suspended sentence. However she said last spring that she would not appeal the appellate court’s ruling.
 Ruoho is a former Finns Party MP who quit the nationalist party when immigration hardliner  Jussi Halla-aho  became chair in June 2017.
 Hakkarainen has a record of seven convictions since 1985, including chopping down trees illegally while drunk, stealing silverware and wine from a church, drunk driving, speeding, and  ethnic agitation  for anti-Muslim comments on Facebook in 2016.


Lahti-based daily Etelä-Suomen Sanomat reports on today's  government handover , as the five-party coalition led by  Social Democrat chair   Antti Rinne  takes over the reins from the outgoing three-party cabinet of the Centre Party's  Juha Sipilä .
 According to protocol, Finnish President  Sauli Niinistö  will meet the Speaker of Parliament and Rinne at 10am in his official residence of Mäntyniemi and, having heard the Speaker, will notify the Parliament of the nominee for Prime Minister.
 The Parliament then elects a Prime Minister at its plenary session starting at noon, and at 2pm, the President formally appoints  the PM and the government ministers  the new premier proposes. The previous government will officially resign at this time.
 A subsequent constitutive session will see the ministers take an oath of office, divvy up responsibilities, and formally submit their Government Programme to Parliament. This session will be followed by the new government paying a complimentary visit to the Presidential Palace, on the heels of a similar 'farewell' visit from the outgoing administration.
 The paper writes that Parliament will select a new Speaker on Friday and begin discussion of the incoming government's programme next Tuesday.
 11 women ministers, 8 men
 Capital city area daily Helsingin Sanomat features a story on the  gender balance of the new government , as women account for 11 of the incoming cabinet's ministers, while eight are men.
 HS says this is still not the most female-heavy government in Finnish history, as the second 2007-2010 coalition fronted by Centre Party PM  Matti Vanhanen  still holds the record for the largest percentage of women, with 12 female ministers out of 20.
 In contrast, five of Juha Sipilä's outgoing 16 ministers were women, and of the 23 various ministers that shuffled through his administration over the past four years, only nine were female.
 Fortifying the welfare state
 HS's political analyst  Marko Junkkari  writes in a  column  today that the incoming PM  Antti Rinne  repeatedly mentioned the welfare state in his government's programme, saying several times that his new left-leaning coalition will work to "strengthen" it.
 Junkkari points out the contrast to outgoing PM Juha Sipilä's coalition, which made no mention of Finland's  hyvinvointivaltio  in its government programme – the first coalition to not do so since the 1950s.
 The paper's analyst says the Finnish public is traditionally very supportive of the welfare state, with polls consistently indicating that residents are willing to pay considerable taxes to keep the social system in motion. "I dare say it's doubtful there will be any downsizing over the next four years," he says.
 Payback time
 And the tabloid Iltalehti wraps up this Thursday's paper review with news of an audit at the state benefits administrator Kela which found more than  800 individuals had received unemployment benefits under false pretences .
 Kela said in a statement that it regularly checks the income of people receiving the different kinds of  unemployment benefits  that are available in Finland, and their latest appraisal examined income from earnings and other sources during 2016. The agency's website says that the relevant data from 1,167 unemployment benefit recipients were analysed, and the income from 812 indicated that their benefits had been granted based on faulty information.
 Most of the cases involved salaries or wages that the beneficiary had not reported to Kela, although there were also a few cases of unreported earnings from business activities and copyright payments.
 The agency says it will be asking recipients to pay back the excess – an average of close to 7,000 euros for the year per person, accounting for a total of nearly five million euros. In 2016, Kela distributed over two billion euros in unemployment benefits to approximately 388,000 people.


Social Democratic Party chair  Antti Rinne  has blossomed into what appears to be an expert negotiator who led disciplined and smooth talks to form Finland's new five-party coalition, according to political commentator  Sini Korpinen  and world politics professor  Teivo Teivainen .
 Dubbed the "Famous Five" by Swedish People's Party  Anna-Maja Henriksson,  the new cabinet was  sworn into office  by President  Sauli Niinistö  on Thursday afternoon, bringing an end to weeks of discussions involving Rinne's SDP, the Centre Party led by former PM  Juha Sipilä ,  Pekka Haavisto 's Green Party, the Left Alliance led by  Li Andersson , and the SPP.
 Following a  parliamentary election in April , Korpinen had tapped  Petteri Orpo' s National Coalition Party to join a Rinne-led administration. However Teivainen observed that the parties proved to be too far apart on key issues to allow them to cooperate in government.
 Korpinen noted that while the Centre Party may have had to concede ground on some issues, it did emerge a winner as it is still in government and was also able to push through its goal of creating 18 regional administrations to deliver social and health care services as part of  an ambitious reform package .
 Boost for Haavisto's possible presidential aspirations
 With Rinne as premier, the Centre's  Mika Lintilä , a former economic affairs minister, will assume the finance minister portfolio, while the Greens' Haavisto will be foreign minister. Teivainen noted that Haavisto will be surfing the Green wave that characterised the Finnish general election as well as  recent European Parliament elections . Finnish foreign policy will more closely resemble EU foreign policy, particularly on climate issues, he added.
 According to Teivainen, as a skilled and well-respected international negotiator, Haavisto's foreign minister portfolio could well help set up another presidential election bid for the Greens chair.
 With the Finns Party now the largest party in opposition, Teivainen said voters can expect to see chair  Jussi Halla-aho  adopt an even tougher stance on immigration as well as on social welfare issues. Korpinen said that if the NCP, which is now also occupying opposition benches, finds common ground with the Finns Party, it could drive more liberal NCP voters toward the Greens.
 APN returns in autumn
 All Points North will take a break for the summer. However if you have any questions, or would like to share something on your mind, just contact us via WhatsApp on +358 44 421 0909, on our Facebook or Twitter accounts, or at yle.news@yle.fi.
 The All Points North podcast is a weekly look at what's going on in Finland. Subscribe via  iTunes  (and leave a review!), listen  on Spotify  and  Yle Areena  or find it on your favourite podcatching app or via our  RSS feed .
 This week's podcast presenters were  Denise Wall  and  Mark B. Odom . The episode was produced by  Priya Ramachandran D'souza  and the audio engineer was  Mikko Majanen.


Yle’s latest political barometer, which comes on the heels of  the swearing in of a new government  led by Social Democratic Party chair  Antti Rinne , shows little change from a previous post-election poll. The new PM’s party enjoys the support of 17.4 percent of the electorate, down by a negligible 0.4 percentage points from a previous poll. All of the changes in the new survey were well within the two-percent-point margin of error.
 The new voter approval survey shows the outgoing PM  Juha Sipilä ’s Centre Party with greatest movement of all of the major political parties – albeit downward by 0.9 percentage points – settling at 12.4 percent backing and continuing a months-long slippage.
 On the other end of the spectrum, the nationalist Finns Party posted the biggest gains, with support rising 0.7 percentage points to 19.5 percent. It is now Finland’s most popular political party with a lead of more than two percentage points over the second place SDP.
 "New Finns Party supporters have woken up this time around, meaning that they didn’t vote in the elections. But if we consider this party, it is mainly stripping backing from the Centre Party," Taloustutkimus research director  Jari Pajunen  said.
 Greens see spike in ex-chair's hometown, Turku
 Meanwhile Foreign Minister  Pekka Haavisto ’s Green Party overtook the Centre to occupy fourth place in the poll with 13.9 percent backing. Former Greens chair  Ville Niinistö ’s successful run for an MEP seat was reflected in the poll results, which showed strong spike in support for the party in Niinistö’s hometown, Turku, Pajunen noted.
 Taloustutkimus gathered responses for the survey during government formation talks involving the SDP, Centre, Greens, Left Alliance and the Swedish People’s Party, with the last of the responses recorded on Tuesday.
 This means that the poll does not reflect possible reaction to  the government agenda , which was formally announced on Monday. All the same, the new government coalition enjoys a combined level of support of 56 percent of voters.
 Now in opposition, the National Coalition Party led by former finance minister  Petteri Orpo  holds third place in the survey with 16.7 percent voter approval. Relegation to the opposition benches does not appear to have boosted the party’s popularity, but may have been a disappointment to supporters, the pollster speculated.
 Similarly, the Left Alliance did not appear to benefit from its participation in coalition formation talks as just eight percent of voters backed it. Voter enthusiasm for the party now stands at 7.8 percent, making it the first time since last summer that backing has fallen below eight percent.
 Voters bolder about declaring support
 However, another junior government party, the Swedish People's Party, did enjoy a slight, 0.5-percentage-point bump in voter support to arrive at 4.5 percent voter approval.
 Backing for the Christian Democrats remained almost steady at 3.6 percent, while the one-MP party Movement Now registered 1.7 percent voter support.
 The Blue Reform, which splintered from the Finns Party in 2017, did not see any MPs re-elected to parliament, so it does not appear in the poll.
 As was the case one month ago, a larger than usual proportion of respondents – more than 76 percent compared to the usual 60-odd percent – were prepared to disclose their party affiliations.
 According to Taloustutkimus voters’ readiness to declare their intentions increased during the April parliamentary election and the European Parliament election that took place in May.


Parliament convened on Friday to elect a speaker and deputy speakers for the new four-year parliamentary term, choosing MPs from the Centre, SDP and Finns Parties for the roles.
 Matti Vanhanen of the Centre took the top job, with SDP MP  Tuula Haatainen  and Finns Party legislator  Juha Eerola  chosen as deputies.
 The National Coalition Party (NCP) protested at being left outside the speakership by abstaining from the confirmatory vote. By convention the speaker comes from the second-largest party, with his or her deputies providing a balance.
 In the last parliamentary term however, all three spots went to government parties--which were also the three largest parties in parliament.
 This time round the Finns Party had demanded that the speakership be a Finns Party MP, as they are the second largest group of MPs in parliament.
 Discussion culture
 In his acceptance speech Vanhanen touched on the more direct style of political debate that has emerged in recent years.
 “Our century-old form of government is currently producing some creative tension between the government and parliament,” said the 63-year-old. “Let’s use that for the common good. As speaker I will work to advance a culture of debate in which differences of opinion are not hidden, but we value others’ motives and avoid deliberate misunderstandings.”
 He also expressed the hope that MPs would reform the workings of committees in parliament.
 In her speech, Haatainen said that she hoped parliament would provide a good example of a culture of discussion and debate, and that MPs should respect one another and remember that parliament is a workplace.
 Eerola, on the other hand, said that stressing hate speech had the effect of restricting freedom of speech.
 Vanhanen took 141 votes in the closed ballot, with 39 abstensions. Three candidates got one vote each and two ballot papers were rejected.
 Comeback kid
 A political veteran who was once voted ‘sexiest man in Finland’ by readers of a gossip magazine, Vanhanen was first elected to parliament in 1991 before resigning his seat in 2010 along with the post of Prime Minister after a bruising campaign financing scandal.
 He ran for president in 2018 but didn’t make the second round, polling just 4.1 percent of the vote.
 In other parliamentary business, the Centre Party group elected  Antti Kurvinen  as its leader, replacing  Antti Kaikkonen  who will be Defence Minister in the new government. The Left Alliance chose  Paavo Arhinmäki  to lead its MPs replacing  Aino-Kaisa Pekonen  who has been named as the minister in charge of social affairs and health.
 The Swedish People’s Party’s MPs will be led by  Anders Adlercreutz , while the Finns Party has nominated  Mika Niikko  to lead the Foreign Affairs committee.


The Swedish People's Party has unanimously re-elected  Anna-Maja Henriksson  as its chair. She got the green light for another three-year leadership term at a party conference in Vaasa on Finland's west coast. She had no challenger for the post.
 Last week Henriksson resumed her old post of justice minister, which she held in two cabinets between 2011 and 2015.
 Henriksson said that the results of the two elections this spring showed that the small language-based party remains relevant.
 "The results of this political spring speak for themselves. There is clearly a demand for our policies. Finland needs the SPP and its liberal, bourgeois policies".
 Support between 4.5 and 6.3%
 The small, middle-of-the-road Swedish People's Party has just returned to its familiar spot as a junior government partner after a rare term in the opposition.
 An Yle opinion poll released on Friday showed the party gaining a slight rise in popularity up to 4.5 percent voter approval. That is the same level of support it garnered in April's parliamentary election, allowing it retain its nine seats in the 200-seat legislature – and its status as seventh largest of the eight parties in Parliament.
 The SPP performed slightly better in May's European Parliament election, picking up 6.3 percent of voters and holding on to its one seat among a baker's dozen Finnish MEPs.
 According to Statistics Finland, 5.2 percent of the population spoke Swedish as a mother tongue in 2018, down from 6.3 percent in 1980.
 Adlercreutz leads parliamentary delegation
 As the smallest of the five parties in the new coalition government, the SPP has  two cabinet seats  out of 19. The second went to  Thomas Blomqvist  of Raseborg, western Uusimaa, who is now minister for equality and Nordic cooperation.
 Henriksson hails from Jakobstad, 100 km up the coast from Vaasa, where she has been a town councillor since 1997. The 55-year-old lawyer has been in Parliament since 2007, becoming  the SPP's first female chair  in June 2016.
 The party elected three deputy chairs on Sunday:  Sandra Bergqvist ,  Silja Borgarsdóttir Sandelin  and  Henrik Wickström . Former deputy chair  Anders Adlercreutz , an architect from Kirkkonummi, was elected as leader of the SPP parliamentary group, taking over from Blomqvist.


Southwest daily Turun Sanomat  reports  that South Korean President  Moon Jae-in  and his wife  Kim Jung-sook  have arrived in Finland for a state visit. Their trip, which began Sunday, will last through Tuesday.
 Finnish President  Sauli Niinistö  and his wife  Jenni Haukio  will greet their guests today at a ceremony at Helsinki's Presidential Palace. The ceremony will begin at 10 am, weather permitting, and the public will be able to follow the proceedings from Helsinki's Market Square.
 Niinistö's office says the presidents will discuss bilateral relations, regional questions and multilateral cooperation on a global level. The leaders will hold a joint press conference once the talks have finished.
 The previous presidential visit from the Republic of Korea took place in 2006. Niinistö last visited South Korea when he attended the international Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul in 2012.
 Who walks the talk?
 Oulu-based newspaper Kaleva features  answers  from some of Finland's new ministers about their lifestyle choices with respect to the government programme's new climate agenda.
 The ministers were asked where they lived, in what kind of home, and how they heated it. They were also asked what kind of transportation they used. Examples include Left Alliance chair and education minister  Li Andersson , whosays she lives in a wooden oil-heated row house in Turku and has an apartment in Helsinki with district heating that she buys from renewable energy sources. She says she primarily uses the train or walks.
 Defence minister  Antti Kaikkonen  from the Centre Party says he lives 30 kilometres north of Helsinki in Tuusula in an electrically-heated detached home and primarily uses a car for travel.  Sanna Marin , transport and communications minister from the Social Democratic Party, lives in a district heating-warmed apartment in Tampere and says she uses a car when necessary.
 Green Party chair and interior minister  Maria Ohisalo  says she lives in a duplex with district heating in Helsinki's Viikki district and mostly get around by bike or public transport. Swedish People's Party chair and justice minister  Anna-Maja Henriksson  lives in the city of Jakobstad in western Finland in a detached home with direct electric heating and an air source heat pump. She also has a small apartment where she stays in Helsinki. She says she travels from her hometown to Helsinki by plane or train.
 The state provides chauffeur-driven cars to all ministers for reasons of safety and expedience. Most of the ministers responding to the questions say they will still try to walk and use public transport whenever they can.
 Filling a public physician void
 The nation's most widely-read daily, Helsingin Sanomat, has a story on  government's plans to hire 1,000 new doctors  to work at public health care centres. The paper reports that the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) recently revised its estimate of how many more doctors are required to bring public services up to speed to between 1,100 and 1,800.
 "Municipalities have started to count on people of working age using occupational health care services and half of children being covered by private sickness insurance. The increased popularity of the active population opting for private services illustrates a deep mistrust of basic services," says  Kati Myllymäki  of the Finnish Medical Association, a professional organisation for doctors.
 Some 25 million visits to public health care centres were registered last year, 6.4 million involving the centres' doctors. Only eight percent of people in lowest income bracket have bought private insurance, compared with 30 percent of people in the highest income level.
 THL research director  Maria Vaalavuo  tells the paper that many high earners don't know what it is like to wait in line at a public health care centre "because they have never done it". She says that the lines are mostly filled with the unemployed, seniors and children without private coverage – groups that have "little political clout" that would urge municipalities to remedy the deteriorating situation.
 Warmer than usual, perhaps?
 And the tabloid Ilta-Sanomat has made a prediction concerning the  weather for the Midsummer weekend of 21-23 June , when most Finns head to their summer cottages from some rest and relaxation.
 Although "it's hard to make forecasts in advance", IS says the current prediction is looking good for the cherished holiday.
 "Based on the monthly forecast you could say that southern Finland might see warmer temperatures than normal, so there's hope," Foreca meteorologist  Kristian Roine  tells the paper.
 Temperatures of around 24 degrees Celsius are being predicted for the Helsinki area's Midsummer weekend at present, while central and northern areas have forecasts of "normal weather" for the season, with temperatures around 20 degrees.


The Oulu-based paper  Kaleva reports on a proposal  by the Criminal Sanctions Agency, Rise, to reform the country's prison system, partly by centralising prisons in large cities and new growth centres. The proposed locations for correctional facilities would be the Helsinki region as well as Turku, Tampere, Jyväskylä, Kuopio, Oulu, Vaasa and Hämeenlinna.
 The paper's reporting is based on a memo acquired by the Lännen Media news consortium, which contains an analysis of the current prison network. The agency handed the document over to the Justice Ministry in April, Kaleva noted.
 "We are hoping for a decision in next year's budget schedule, or by the end of this year," said Rise development manager  Pauli Nieminen .
 According to the analysis, there are roughly 7,000 convicts in the prison system, with 3,000 of them in custody at any given time. The proposed reforms would reduce the annual number of occupants by 1,000 a year in 20 years. At the same time the number of open prisons and the use of ankle monitors would increase to cover half of the system's inmates, compared to one-third today.
 Rise's overhaul of the prison system also calls for complete renovations to existing prisons. In the future, two-thirds of convicts would do time in new facilities. Rise expects that the rationalisation of the prison network would reduce annual spending by up to seven percent or 32 million euros in 20 years. Kaleva wrote that the vision also involves preventing recidivism or repeat offences by devoting an additional 260 person-years in resources to working with inmates, thereby further decreasing the annual prison population by 1,000 in 20 years.
 Baby bonus goes bust
 The tiny town of Sulkava in southeastern Finland found itself on the wrong side of the local administrative court when it tried to boost its population by introducing a kind of baby bonus, reports  the tabloid daily Ilta-Sanomat .
 The paper writes that with a population of just 2,500 give or take, city officials agreed to introduce  a baby bonus in the form of a tax rebate . However the measure proved to be illegal because it set families on an unequal footing. City leaders agreed to the measure last February, however one councillor opposed it and filed a complaint with the local administrative court.
 The Eastern Finland Administrative Court sided with the complainant and revoked the benefit, which would have refunded taxes paid by families with babies born last year or this year as a fixed "stipend". It also blocked the city council from paying out any gratuities.
 The court estimated that a resident earning 1,500 euros a month would have paid 900 euros in local taxes last year, while another with a monthly salary of 5,000 euros would have contributed 11,600 euros in taxes. Both would have received the same stipend. IS concluded that residents in Sulkava apparently "got busy between the sheets" but got no baby bonus.
 Worries over apartment block suburbs
 Finland's 600-odd apartment block suburbs are in social and economic decline and pose a challenge to the incoming government,  according to research highlighted  by capital-based daily Helsingin Sanomat.
 The paper unravels the work of Helsinki University researcher  Mats Stjernberg , whose urban geography dissertation argued that concentrations of multi-story flats feature higher levels of unemployment and lower incomes than other areas. Stjernberg also found that on average, residents of such communities also fell ill more often and died younger than people living in other areas.
 Apartment blocks constructed in the 1960s and 70s account for one-third of all residential buildings in the country. However they are now coming to the end of their useful lives, Stjernberg said. That means a cycle of costly renovations to homes that are less likely to sell on the real estate market. While it makes sense to spend on home improvements in Helsinki, homes are likely to be demolished  in other locations experiencing population loss , the dissertation argued.
 HS writes that the new administration led by  Antti Rinne  is worried about the situation. It aims to build new transportation connections and affordable housing as well as strengthen local democracy. It has developed a cross-governmental programme to promote wellbeing and inclusiveness and to revitalise residential areas.
 The price of a ticket to Parliament
 With the deadline approaching for MPs to declare their political campaign spending,  IS runs an analysis of incoming lawmakers' campaign budgets . Topping the list of big spenders was the National Coalition Party's  Pauli Kiuru , whose overall ticket to parliament cost nearly 77,000 euros, of which 18,096 came from donors. According to IS, Kiuru's out-of pocket spending -- around 59,000 euros -- could buy a fancy car or even pay off a loan. The paper asked Kiuru if it made sense to invest that much in a job.
 "Before the election, Ilta-Sanomat wrote a story saying that Pauli Kiuru has the cheapest car of all MPs, a 1,500-euro Mazda. I have no loans and I have a second [investment] home. Now I also have a job for four years," Kiuru countered.
 Prime Minister Antti Rinne was also a major league spender with a declared campaign budget of 62,691 euros, all of it coming from well-wishers.
 At the far end of the spectrum, NCP MP and former television personality  Jaana Pelkonen  got more bang for her campaign buck than any of her parliamentary colleagues. According to her declaration, she spent a total of just 872 euros on her campaign, more than half of which (487 euros) came from donors.
 IS noted that with the filing deadline due on 17 June, just one-third of elected MPs had filed campaign spending declarations.


Newly-minted Social Affairs and Health Minister  Aino-Kaisa Pekonen  has issued assurances that the new government is already taking steps to roll back  the highly unpopular activation model  introduced by the previous administration to get unemployed people into jobs. The plan was part of the previous government's ambition to reform the labour market and boost the employment rate to 72 percent,  a target it achieved at the end of last year .
 The scheme required the unemployed to either enrol in a training programme, bill a minimum of 241 euros or perform 18 hours of paid work in each three-month period. Failure to do so resulted in the authorities docking their unemployment benefit by 4.65 percent a month, amounting to a 32.40-euro cut in the 696-euro benefit from the Social Insurance Institution (Kela).
 During the first review period after the model was introduced by  Juha Sipilä 's administration at the beginning of 2018, roughly  94,000 people suffered benefits cuts  for failing to meet the criteria.
 On Monday, Pekonen took to Twitter to signal that work was underway to strike down the scheme.
 "The activation model is being dismantled. Many have asked and I want to answer clearly. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is already preparing to terminate the model and the change will be implemented as quickly as possible, while paying attention to good legislative practice and the need for changes in Kela's systems," the minister tweeted.
 Questions over administration's plans
 Kela, Finland's principal benefits agency, was responsible for rolling out two of the previous government's flagship labour market reforms,  the activation model  and  a widely-publicised basic income experiment .
 The new administration's plans to bin the activation model have raised some questions. According to the government programme, the model will be discontinued when the cabinet has concluded certain "employment-related measures".
 Before the election, current government partners, the Left Alliance and Prime Minister  Antti Rinne 's Social Democratic Party  had promised to eliminate the model , which was widely seen as unjust.
 A citizens' initiative to dismantle the scheme gathered broad support and  was handed to lawmakers  soon after the model was introduced.


Finland's  Non-Discrimination Ombudsman ,  Kirsi Pimiä , says that the youth wing of the nationalist Finns Party (FP) is suspected of unlawful ethnic harassment and that one of its social media posts was clearly incompatible with the aims of the Youth Act.
 Pimiä declared that the youth group violated the ban on discrimination based on ethnic origin or had at least offended the human dignity of dark-skinned Finns.
 She was responding to a post on the youth branch's Twitter account last month. It showed a dark-skinned family with a text urging people to vote for the FP in the European Parliament election "so that Finland's future doesn't look like this".
 The Ministry of Education and Culture had asked the Ombudsman for a determination as to whether the FP youth organisation's action was compatible with the Non-Discrimination Act. Pimiä wrote in her statement that the action was in clear violation of the equality clause of the Youth Act.
 State may withdraw subsidy
 The ministry may claw back 115,000 euros in state aid granted to the FP youth for this year due to the tweet.
 The youth group has responded to this threat by saying that the post was "an individual member's Twitter post made in error, which does not represent the organisation's stance". The tweet was posted by the group's deputy chair,  Toni Jalonen .
 The youth wing later  deleted the tweet  and said it was thoughtless and contrary to accepted moral principles.
 According to Pimiä, the comments in response to the tweet indicated that at least some of those in leadership positions in the FP youth group believed that the post was intended to spread an "ethno-nationalist" message emphasising the status of the white population.
 Concerns raised earlier in spring
 "It is worth noting that the post was published on a communications channel of the youth organisation of the second-largest party in the Finnish Parliament, and that comments related to the message that are offensive to human dignity have not been deleted," Pimiä said in her statement.
 The Ombudsman says that the actions demonstrate a fundamental lack of respect for dark-skinned people and are offensive to these people.
 Police are also  investigating the case .
 In March, well before the social media post, the Education Ministry had already summoned a representative of the FP youth to discuss the ministry's concerns about the group's previous statements on immigration, which it suspected were in violation of the aims of the Youth Act.
 Finns Party chair Jussi Halla-aho and a number of other FP politicians have been convicted of online hate speech over the years. The party is one seat short of being the largest in the new Finnish Parliament, and has led public opinion polls in recent weeks.


The capital city daily Helsingin Sanomat starts out the day with  an analysis of the parliamentary floor debate  between Prime Minister  Antti Rinne  and National Coalition Party chair  Petteri Orpo  in yesterday's plenary session. The paper says the reasons why the centre-right NCP was left out of the new left-leaning government were made clear after Orpo repeatedly questioned the financial sustainably of the  incoming coalition's agenda .
 "The NCP didn't fit in because we refused to fall for this huge bluff," Orpo reportedly said, criticizing the Social Democratic premier for a government programme that adds to the deficit and "showers money on more than a hundred different targets".
 Rinne said that his government aims to create 60,000 new jobs that will strengthen the economy and make it possible to fund the "necessary added expenditures", therefore creating what he calls "social sustainability". The paper says Orpo was visibly irritated during the lengthy exchange, while Rinne remained calm.
 The Finns Party, now the largest opposition party in Finland, in turn criticized the government's plans to add several more ministerial assistant positions and increase development assistance levels, HS reports. The populist party was also critical of agenda policies that would make housing costs and car use more expensive.
 "You, dear government, are leading Finland along the path to destruction, in direct defiance of the people's wishes,"  Ville Tavio , the parliamentary chair of the Finns Party said on Tuesday.
 Debate of the government programme continues Wednesday. Parliament will hold a vote on the plan on Thursday, and since Rinne's five-party coalition enjoys a  comfortable majority  the programme is expected to pass.
 Taken by the ankles
 The Tampere-based newspaper Aamulehti looks at  the new government's plan to extend the use of ankle monitors to persons who have received negative asylum decisions in Finland .
 Criminal Sanctions Agency (Rise) senior specialist  Pia Andersson  tells the paper that if this added electronic monitoring is added to the responsibilities of the agency "it would require legislation granting that power and additional resources to manage it." The government programme proposes  expanding the use of ankle monitors  as a more-liberating alternative to detention that is nevertheless appropriate to safeguard public safety. The monitor is connected to a device in the person's home that tracks their coming and going. Any deviations from approved routines are then reported to Rise's national monitoring system.
 Ankle monitors can also be linked to GPS devices for clear monitoring of the wearers' location at all times, the paper writes. Trips outside of an approved area, for example, trigger an alarm, as does any attempt to remove the device.
 Top levels of trust again
 And the Lahti-based paper Etelä-Suomen Sanomat contains a  story  on how Finland came out on top once again in an international survey of 38 countries' trust in the news media. The  2019 Digital News Report  from Reuters Institute found that 59 percent of Finnish residents say that they can trust Finnish news sources.
 "This is probably due to the Finns’ general trust in social institutions and the fact that the mainstream news media are not politically divided. It seems, though, that even in Finland things are slowly changing. Overall trust in the news is now down nine percentage points from 2015, though trust in ‘news I consume’ dropped only 2 percentage points," University of Tampere researcher  Esa Reunanen  says.
 This year's survey also suggests that more than half of Finland's residents regularly get their news online. Some 62 percent report using smartphones to access news on a weekly basis, while 43 percent say mobiles are their main devices for accessing news content, up from 39 percent last year. Further, 39 percent indicated they access news from social media feeds.
 The report ranks the weekly reach of Finland's news agencies, with public broadcaster Yle on top in the category of TV, radio and print outlets, while tabloid papers Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti are the most widely used sources for online news.