Free Republic

Finland’s entire government resigned Friday after the governing coalition failed to agree on the welfare state reform, just one month before elections were due to be held. Juha Sipila has been the country’s prime minister since 2015 after forming a three-party governing coalition with two other right-leaning parties, including the small populist Blue Reform Party, a group that was once part of the eurosceptic True Finns but split up amid divisions over immigration policies. “I take the responsibility for the failure. It has been a huge disappointment to me,” Sipila said during a news conference, adding that the reform in...

Several dozen supporters of President Donald Trump, many waving American flags and sporting “Make America Great Again” caps, have cheered as the U.S. leader neared his hotel in Helsinki before his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. […] The Trump fans, several from the True Finn anti-immigration party, said they wanted to make a show of support in a country where many people have criticized his policies. A few scattered boos rang out from across the road. …

When I had the honor of leading the True Finn Party to electoral victory in April, we made a solemn promise to oppose the so-called bailouts of euro-zone member states. These bailouts are patently bad for Europe, bad for Finland and bad for the countries that have been forced to accept them. Europe is suffering from the economic gangrene of insolvency—both public and private. And unless we amputate that which cannot be saved, we risk poisoning the whole body. The official wisdom is that Greece, Ireland and Portugal have been hit by a liquidity crisis, so they needed a momentary...

Why I Won't Support More Bailouts Insolvency must be purged from Europe's system and it must be done openly and honestly. When I had the honor of leading the True Finn Party to electoral victory in April, we made a solemn promise to oppose the so-called bailouts of euro-zone member states. These bailouts are patently bad for Europe, bad for Finland and bad for the countries that have been forced to accept them. Europe is suffering from the economic gangrene of insolvency—both public and private. And unless we amputate that which cannot be saved, we risk poisoning the whole body....

When I had the honor of leading the True Finn Party to electoral victory in April, we made a solemn promise to oppose the so-called bailouts of euro-zone member states. These bailouts are patently bad for Europe, bad for Finland and bad for the countries that have been forced to accept them. Europe is suffering from the economic gangrene of insolvency—both public and private. And unless we amputate that which cannot be saved, we risk poisoning the whole body. (Excerpted fom WSJ, full article at link.)

The rise of populist parties on the Old Continent seems to echo the success of the Tea Party in the United States. But the two movements have different histories, writes the Boston correspondent for De Morgen. The result, though, is the same: governments threatened with paralysis. Excerpts. In the American media recently there has been a lot of talk of the “European Tea Party.” The Old Continent is supposed to have become acquainted with this movement following the victory of the True Finns in elections in Finland and the rise in the polls in France of the leader of the...

Finland's eurosceptic True Finns party said on Monday it was sticking to its pre-election stance that it cannot support Portugal's bailout package. We cannot with good conscience support Portugal's package nor the creation of permanent bailout mechanism. Neither do we approve the hike of Finland's guarantees in the temporary stability mechanism," the party said on Monday as its formal answer to Jyrki Katainen, the leader of National Coalition party, who is leading the talks to form the country's new coalition government." As has been reported previously, absent Finnish approval, the European rescue is virtually halted in its tracks, and means...

A nationalist party has taken nearly a fifth of votes in Finland's general election, the electoral commission says. The True Finns finished just behind the conservative NCP and the Social Democrats on around 19%.

Timo Soini, 48, is standing in front of "Hesburger," a fast food restaurant in the western part of Helsinki. It is shortly before 10 a.m., and he is waiting patiently for the restaurant to finally open its doors. Soini, the chairman of the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset, or "True Finns" party, has been giving interviews for almost three hours. There are more than 250 new text messages on his mobile phone. Now he's hungry. It is the morning after an election that brought what the papers have called a "revolution" to Finland. Almost one in five voters voted for Soini's party...

There is hardly a country on the continent that has been a more steadfast supporter of the European Union than Finland. For more than 20 years, the voters here have returned the same three parties to power in various coalition governments, with few changes in policies. People joked that watching Finnish politics was about as interesting as watching paint dry. Until now. In the general election last weekend, the nationalist and populist True Finn Party emerged from political obscurity after largely campaigning on the evils of the European Union and its bailouts of Greece and Ireland. It claimed 39 seats...

The recent surge of scepticism in Finland toward the eurozone bailout package has gone down badly in Portugal, where many have taken offence. Finland can now scupper the whole package, which is currently being negotiated in Lisbon. Former Portuguese President Mario Soares wrote on Thursday that Finland has become an ‘arch-conservative country’. The True Finns’ charge has affected Finland’s image in many countries. The True Finns are seen as extreme right wing nationalists who are anti-Europe and anti-foreigner.

The Hungarian government and the Finnish electorate have demonstrated a desire to break with the European consensus. One of the reasons for this crisis could well be that member states are constantly told that there is absolutely no alternative to the European project. How weak Europe is politically! A kingdom of the kind thrown up by the history of the world – from the Roman to the American to the Chinese – was never near European shores, and for historical reasons as well. The continent of Europe was distinguished for ages by fragmentation into petty principalities. And the marks left...

The head of the euroskeptic True Finns party, confident his opposition to the terms of a Portuguese bailout was gaining traction, said on Wednesday euro zone members might face a new solution to the debt crisis by next month. ... He said the best solution to the European debt crisis would be to require banks to recapitalize and bear more of the liability for debts, as he had suggested during his campaign. ... Under the existing rules, funding for the expected 80 billion euro package would come roughly one-third from the IMF and two-thirds from the EFSF and a smaller...

The eurosceptic and anti-immigration True Finns have taken nearly a fifth of votes in Finland's general election, reflecting a trend across Nordic and Western European countries. The phrase "rise of the far-right" has been used - though in each country the parties concerned have their own characteristics and do not necessarily fit the conventional "far-right" description. Here we record the electoral status - and political influence - of some of the most succesful nationalist/ anti-immigrant parties in Europe.

The success of the True Finns party in the Finnish general elections is further proof that eurosceptics are making themselves increasingly heard on a European as well as a national scale. Peter Gauweiler has never liked the euro. “Esperanto money” he calls it, playing on the international artificial language that nobody actually speaks. “If you want to help Greece and Portugal, then you have to say: get out of the Eurozone”, the CSU politician remarked this week in a round-table discussion. Accusations of populism he shrugs off easily: “It just means that I know what the people are thinking.” Gauweiler...

Finland's election results (parlamentary elections): 55.9% of votes counted PS (true finns): 19.2% (+15.2%) Kesk (Centreparty): 19.0% (-4.1%) SDP (social dems): 18.9% (-2.5%) Kokoomus (centre-right): 18.4% (-3.8%) VAS (communists): 8.1% (-0.7%) Vihr (greens): 5.7% (-2.7%) RKP (swedish): 4.3% (-0.2%) KD (christian dems): 4.3% (-0.6%) Seats in the new parlament (estimated): Kokoomus: 42 SDP: 42 PS (true finns): 39 Keskusta: 38

HELSINKI (AFP) - Finns began voting in general elections Sunday after a campaign marked by the meteoric rise of the nationalist True Finns party, which is expected to send parliament lurching to the right. ... The populist, nationalist, immigration-averse True Finns, who are adamantly opposed to European Union bailouts, have meanwhile seen their 4.1 percent tally from the last elections in 2007 balloon to nearly 20 percent in recent polls, although the latest survey put it at 15.4 percent, or fourth place.

FINLAND VOTES tomorrow in a tight general election likely to see large gains for a populist EU- critical party opposed to Portugal’s euro zone bailout. On the back of popular opposition to the Greek and Irish assistance, the nationalist, anti-immigrant True Finns party has doubled its support within a year to challenge decades of consensus rule between Finland’s three main parties. ... True Finns’ framing the vote as a “referendum on Portugal” has forced the two leaders to toughen up their language on euro-zone bailouts. Regardless of their views, most Finns agree that this has been the most interesting election...