Changes in Finland

It takes a great deal more knowledge about various aspects of the problem than most commentators have shown to write sensibly about the high tragedy that is going on in the Mediterranean. For the record I do not think it was particularly sensible of Nigel Farage to blame David Cameron not because this is "playing politics with people's lives" but because it was silly and unserious. As to playing politics, he is a politician so he plays politics.

In other words, this blog is for the time being, refraining from comments or analysis except to say that undoubtedly the EU will try to use this ghastly tragedy as a beneficent crisis and attempt to create another single or common policy out of it, though, so far as we know there already are various EU policies that are meant to deal with migration, legal or otherwise; undoubtedly the attempt will bog down in discussions about the policy and how it should benefit the EU until more migrants either appear on our shores or drown off them.

Instead, we turn to the far less dramatic events in Finland that, in the long term, may well have a greater effect on politics across Europe. Sadly, we have had tragedies with migrants before and apart from calls for all sorts of things in the EU and outside it, nothing much has changed.

The Finnish election brought in a new government, or will do just as soon as the coalition can be put together. The winners are the Centre Party, led by businessman and millionaire Juha Sipila.

Sipila's main concern will be to repair the Nordic country's spluttering economy, although the centrist politician told journalists on Sunday evening that “it will be about 10-year project to get Finland in shape again”.

“A combination of cuts, reforms and growth” is needed, he added.

As Tim Worstall points out on the Adam Smith Institute blog,

We think it’s fairly obvious that over the past decade the most successful economy in the eurozone has been that of Germany. And we also think it’s fairly obvious why this has been so, the so-called Hartz IV reforms. Which appears to be very much what the new Finnish likely Prime Minister believes in.

He quotes from an article in the Telegraph

Opposition Centre Party leader Juha Sipila, who advocates a wage freeze and spending cuts to regain Finland’s competitiveness, beat pro-EU and pro-NATO Prime Minister Alexander Stubb after four years of policy stagnation and a bickering coalition.

Not sure how NATO comes into it unless we are talking about the usual attempt by the europhiliacs to assure all and sundry that if you are not enamoured of their project you are clearly against every kind of international co-operation.

As Mr Sipila starts negotiations it will be very difficult for him to ignore the party that came second, the eurosceptic Finns Party (formerly known as True Finns).

[W]hile the populist anti-establishment party, led by Timo Soini, lost one of its seats, other parties lost more. Soini now leads the second-largest party in parliament, with 38 seats.

The party is anti-immigration but what is of greater importance for the immediate future is that it is against any more bail-outs for Greece and in favour, if needs be, of Grexit. As Mr Worstall says, Finnish politics has just become more interesting.

Curioser and curioser

This blog has mentioned before the curious occurrences in Finland where criminal charges are being pressed against a university professor who wanted to imitate the Pussy Riot punk prayer. Well, to be quite precise, he and his associates wanted to stage a protest rally outside the Cathedral of Assumption in Helsinki. Let us be fair minded about this and say that this was probably not a good idea. Staging a protest against a corrupt and authoritarian political system in which the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church gleefully participates in Russia is one thing. A protest in Helsinki would be more appropriate outside the Russian Embassy or Consulate.
Criminal charges that might result in extensive imprisonment, however, seem a little excessive and unexpected in a democratic country.

As I pointed out in my posting,

What is particularly interesting about the criminal charges is that they were laid by, among others, human right activist Johan Baeckman, who represents the Anti-Fascist Committee of Finland.

A number of people became interested enough to follow up the career of Johan Baeckman and one reader of this blog from across the Pond directed my attention to the man's Wikipedia entry and quite interesting it is, too. There is too much to quote but it is fair to say that Johan Baekman's main political preoccupation is to support Russia in every way, to try to prove that Finland was the real aggressor in 1941 (Continuation War) whereas the original conflict (Winter War) did not really happen, that Finland has planned ethnic cleansing of Karelia and, possibly, other parts of Russia and other interesting historical counter-factuals.

More recently, he has written about a "conspiracy" to smear Vladimir Putin through the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, carried out by those conspirators.

He has also denied that there was any Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940 - 41 (and, for all I know, at any time at all) and has, as part of his "anti-fascist" activity staged joint demonstrations and anti-Estonian protests with the thuggish Nashi, the Putinite youth movement.

The story has now been taken up by the St Petersburg Times. [The English is not mine but the website's]

Several Russian news outlets reported that Teivo Teivainen, a professor of world politics at the University of Helsinki, faces up to five years in prison for trying to break into a Russian Orthodox Cathedral in the Finnish capital with a canister full of urine. 

Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, Finnish YLE radio and the University of Helsinki have all exposed the accusations as false, but Russian media seem to be in no hurry to publish corrections of their earlier reports.

The “canister of urine” fiction became a national story in Russia when it was reported by Interfax, the major news agency, and picked up by other news agencies, websites, newspapers and major television channels on August 15, two days ahead of the verdict in the Pussy Riot trial.

Unsurprisingly, the source for this and various other factual inaccuracies is our friend, the anti-fascist (how that title takes one back) Johan Baeckman, "Finland's best-known supporter of the Putin regime".

Many of Bäckman’s previous statements have been readily and uncritically reprinted in the Russian press, leading Helsingin Sanomat to dub Bäckman “the Russian media’s favorite Finn.”

In an article titled “Criminal proceedings launched against organizer of attempt to repeat the Pussy Riot performance in Helsinki,” Interfax reported on Aug. 15 that Bäckman and several other people had signed a complaint to the police.

“Criminal proceedings have been initiated under two Finnish Criminal Code articles concerning the violation of rules on religious tolerance,” Bäckman was quoted as saying.

A paragraph containing a reference to the “canister full of urine,” although technically unattributed, was inserted between quotations from Bäckman.

It seems that the reality was slightly different:

The University of Helsinki published a statement the following day in which it asked the media to correct the information and denied the accusations against Teivainen, who had spoken in support of Pussy Riot during one in a series of walking tours organized by the university and Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art.

During these tours, Teivainen stops at different sites and discusses international political issues with his audience. During the walk on August 3, he stopped near the Bank of Finland, where he spoke about the global economic crisis. During the stop near Uspenski Cathedral, he spoke about the human rights situation in Russia.

“The walking tours included several vivifying pieces of performance art, one of which was held in front of the cathedral,” the University of Helsinki’s statement said.

“In it, two masked women expressed their support for the group Pussy Riot. The performance did not constitute a crime.”

It seems that other signatories of the criminal charges have now realized that they have been somewhat misled and have "retracted their signatures from Bäckman’s petition to the University of Helsinki, in which he demanded that the university fire Teivainen" though their signatures are still there on Bäckman’s site.

Meanwhile, the leading Finnish supporter of Putin's regime anti-fascist is having some trouble explaining where some of the stories have originated and whether there are, indeed, criminal charges being pressed against Professor Teivainen.

A Pussy Riot trial in Finland?

Word comes that

Criminal charges have been pressed against a Finnish university professor who attempted to imitate a “punk prayer” by the Russian feminist group Pussy Riot.

Here is the story in Russian.

Teivo Teivanen, professor and head of the Political Science Department at the University of Helsinki, and a group of masked girls, was prevented from staging a protest rally and a performance near the Cathedral of Assumption in Helsinki.

What is particularly interesting about the criminal charges is that they were laid by, among others,human right activist Johan Baeckman, who represents the Anti-Fascist Committee of Finland. Ahem!

Take that Ms Toynbee

One of the best things that happened to the Telegraph is that it acquired Tim Worstall as columnist. I am rather astonished that the editor had the good sense to offer Tim a slot. He and I do not necessarily agree every time but we do dislike the same people, Polly Toynbee being high on the list, though I do realize that it does not place us into a particularly select group.

Yesterday's column had an interesting title: Let's give Polly Toynbee the Britain she wants. I have always assumed that Polly Toynbee envisages a kind of Soviet society where she and her friends and relations would be exempt from the poverty and misery that she would like to inflict on everyone else and have always enjoyed the thought that in the Soviet Union even the bosses had a constrained life that was much poorer than average existence in the West.

However, Mr Worstall has gone one better: he has taken Ms Toynbee at her word. Apparently the silly cow Grauniad columnist has expressed the wish of seeing the same social and economic balance that one can find in the Nordic countries.

She clearly knows nothing about Nordic countries. Presumably she did not read Graeme Leach's paper on economic lessons from Scandinavia that might have surprised her about the level of taxation and regulation in those countries.

Perhaps she will read Mr Worstall's collection of facts as opposed to myths so beloved by the Guardinistas.

Let's change policy to achieve that laudable aim. We should copy the Finnish education system, for example – it is, after all, the number one such system in the world. There they divide into academic and vocational at 16 and there's none of this nonsense that all must go to university – that's reserved for the small fraction that are indeed academic. Or the Swedish system of education vouchers. Parents decide on the school they want children to go to and the local council stumps up the fees – whether it's a public or private school.

From Denmark we'll take a couple of policies. Privatise the ambulance and fire services certainly. They've been working well there for nigh on 90 years. We'd want their taxation system as well: the national income taxis 3.76% and the top national rate is 15%. True, total income taxes are high but the rest is levied by the commune, a political unit as small as 10,000 people. At that scale, taxation is subject to the Bjorn's Beer Effect. If you know that it's Bjorn who levies your taxes, Bjorn who spends your taxes and also know where Bjorn has his Friday night beer, then he's going to spend your money wisely. Otherwise he can't go out for a beer on Friday, can he?

From all of them we'll take the abolition of the national minimum wage, fornone of the EU Nordics has one.

Sweden has also abolished inheritance tax, gift tax and the wealth tax. Those sound like three excellent ideas to copy.

We'll have to raise VAT as well, of course: for this is something that people don't seem to realise about Nordic tax systems. In many ways they are more regressive (yes, regressive, not progressive) than our own. This is because those countries follow the basic economics of taxation. You need low corporate and capital taxation, moderate income taxation and high taxes on consumption.

I suspect Ms Toynbee will have fit if she reads that. I also suspect that she will go on peddling her nonsense without bothering to find out any facts.

Misleading titles

Even though my knowledge of German is shaky, I could understand this title in Die Welt: "Die Deutschen wollen mehr Europa". The Germans, I read, want more Europa. But not, I noticed, more European Union. My reading of the title and my stuttering through the article was confirmed by Open Europe and its team of translators:

According to a series of Deutschlandtrend polls conducted by ARD, only 35% of Germans accept “limited” versions of Eurobonds, with 55% opposing them. 66% do not support stronger eurozone countries providing credit guarantees for weaker ones, while 80% believe that “the worst of the euro– anddebt – crisis is yet to come.” 64% support “more common policy making in Europe over the next few years” (mehr gemeinsame Politik in Europa). However, the question does not mention the EU and does not ask whether respondents agree that powers should be transferred to the EU institutions. Answering a separate question, 53% of respondents said they were opposed to the idea of “United States of Europe”, with only 42% in favour.

Then Open Europe makes something of a boo-boo of its own. They quote from the Finnish business magazine Talouselämä (goodness, do they have Finnish translators in Open Europe?) and say in the heading: "47% of Finns think euro has done more harm than good, down from 71% a year ago". What?

Ahem, no. As you were. The translated and summarized text says:

Meanwhile, a poll conducted last week by Taloustutkimus Oy for Finnish business magazine Talouselämä shows that 49% of Finns are opposed to Finnish participation in EU emergency aid to Greece, while only 34% support the EU bailout. The same poll showed that 47% of Finns think the euro has done more good than harm, down from 71% in a Eurobarometer poll a year ago.

Exactly, the opposite to what the title says. Here are the figures on the opposition to the bail-out on Reuters. And here is the full story in English on YLE. Maybe there are no Finnish translators in Open Europe, after all. That might explain the perplexing heading.

Finland, meanwhile, refuses to budge on the question of the collateral agreement with Greece and the Prime Minister has been threatened with a meeting with Council President Van Rompuy on Monday morning. There's a threat to bring terror into any politician's heart.

The Finns are not happy

This time it is the Finnish Prime Minister who is not happy. According to this article in the Daily Telegraph

Mr Katainen [Finnish Prime Minister] said that if Finland's bilateral agreement with Greece over collateral payments was overruled, the Nordic country could back out of the rescue programme.

He told reporters that the private collateral agreement, in which Greece agreed to give Finland €1bn (£875m) in cash in return for its suppport, was "our parliament's decision that we demand it as a condition for us joining in".

The problem is, as Investment Week pointed out,

Finland had agreed a private collateral agreement, in which Greece would give €1bn (£875m) in cash in return for the Finnish parliament's support.

This sparked demands from Austria, the Netherlands and Slovakia for similar treatment, with both the Austrians and the Dutch criticising the deal.

Greece would not be able to cope with all those collaterals (any more than it can cope with her domestic economic problems) and they would have to be covered from the bail-outs. This, naturally enough, has annoyed the other eurozone countries.

The Austrian Finance Minister has said "such a unilateral deal is an "intolerable suggestion and an agreement that burdens third parties" — the other eurozone countries participating in the bailout". Then she added that "she will ask the EU's 27 finance ministers to approve Austria's demand that the same terms must apply to all countries shouldering the Greek financial burden. The Netherlands, Slovenia and Slovakia have indicated they would like similar treatment." Makes sense to me.

On the one hand, on the other hand ...

According to the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European External Action Service and the CFSP High Panjandrum, Baroness Ashton are a wonderful idea and will be an even better idea as it develops. On the other hand, decisions will be taken unanimously and Finland is not about to give up its own representations abroad. So there!

True Finns will not be in government

True Finns, who did extraordinarily well in the Finnish election, will not be in the new coalition government as they do not go along with the other parties on the question of the Portuguese bail-out, the issue on which they campaigned and were elected.

Meanwhile, here is an article by Timo Soini, the True Finns' leader in its "uncensored" version unlike that published in the Wall Street Journal though I suspect the editing was done mostly for reasons of space.

Now it's Finland's turn to haver

As Reuters reports, it will be hard "for the National Coalition party, which won the most votes on Sunday, to form a coalition with the True Finns and the opposition Social Democrats, who finished second", especially as Timo Soini (a name we had all better get used to), leader of the True Finns, is happily insisting that the Portuguese bail-out will have to be abandoned.

Negotiations are likely to be lengthy, too lengthy for the Finance Ministers who meet on May 16 to put the finishing touches on that bail-out and it will be the outgoing government that will be represented. However, Finland is in a unique position: its parliament will have to vote on the agreed deal.

Analysts say Katainen's [National Coalition leader and likely next Prime Minister] solution will likely be a mix of compromises and face-saving measures, such as offering cosmetic concessions on European finance and handing some key cabinet jobs to the True Finns in exchange for letting the Portugal vote pass in parliament.

Some say the new government is likely to take a slightly tougher stance against Brussels to heed voter discontent.

The True Finns' tough line against bailouts has resonated among many voters who feel their famously high taxes are helping to bail out irresponsible governments, while they struggle with high unemployment.

Let us not forget that Finland is the small country that could and did resist Stalin's mighty Soviet Union.

Results of the Finnish election

According to this article,

Finnish voters dealt a blow Sunday to Europe's plans to rescue Portugal and other debt-ridden economies, ousting the pro-bailout government and giving a major boost to a euroskeptic nationalist party.

This, one must admit, is only partly true.

With all ballots counted, the biggest vote-winner was the conservative National Coalition Party, part of the outgoing center-right government and a strong advocate for European integration.

But its main ally, the Center Party led by Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi, said it would drop out of the government after falling behind two opposition parties that have challenged eurozone bailouts.

According to the preliminary results, which will have to be confirmed by the electoral committees:

The conservatives won 20 percent of the vote for 44 seats in the 200-member Parliament, two more than the Social Democrats. The True Finns, led by the plain-talking Timo Soini, soared from six to 39 seats.

It would appear, that the bail-out was more of an issue than immigration with the entire establishment pleading with the Finnish voters to cast their vote for the parties that supported it. The pleas do not seem to have worked well enough.

The Telegraph really needs better headline writers

The day after Barack Obama was elected to the Presidency of the United States I stopped buying the Daily Telegraph (having given up on its Sunday sister long before). I had found its coverage of the American presidential elections so tedious and tendentious, so full of adulation of Obama and of venom towards Sarah Palin, so reluctant even to mention the Republican campaign that I saw no reason why I should give that newspaper any more of my money.

Since then its content has not improved though there are a few journalists who are readable and quite interesting; while their sub-editing and headline writing has definitely deteriorated. Bruno Waterfield's piece about True Finns the "Eurosceptic and anti-immigrant party" expecting to do well in the Finnish election is perfectly reasonable and factual. The headline says: "Finland elections: far right expected to make big gains". This is above a particularly unpleasant photograph of Timo Soini, the leader of True Finns.

How is being eurosceptic, wanting to control immigration and, above all, wishing to renegotiate the Portuguese bail-out that will cost Finland dearly "far right"?