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Svenskfinland in English is on a bit of a summer pause right now. Not much is going on anyway to write about - at least in current affairs.

Some good news today. It has been announced that our cathedral in the city of Borgå (Porvoo) will reopen to the public again already next week. So reports Radio Östnyland.

The cathedral, which is the seat to the Swedish-speaking diocese of the Finnish Church, was set on fire on a Sunday night in late May 2006 by young vandals from Askola. One of these (an 18 year old) was later sentenced by Borgå court to 3 years and 2 months in prison for sabotage. Two others who were accussed of assiting him escaped penalty. The fire destroyed the roof of the historic mediaeval church building but luckily the interior escaped largely undamaged. The sight of the church without its roof shocked many Borgå residents used to it dominating the skyline of their hometown. For those of us who live in this district, it was quite a horrific crime.

The renovation work has now, however, been completed - long ahead of schedule. The new fire prevention and sprinkler system has been tested too. Despite the reopening, there will however not be any church services in the cathedral until the officially scheduled reinaugration ceremony on the 1st day of advent.

2009 will be a significant year for the building and for the city of Borgå. 29 May 2009 is the 200th anniversary of the Borgå lantdag, Diet of Borgå. It was at this meeting that Russian tsar Alexander I proclaimed to the assembled Finnish dignitaries that he would maintain the laws, relgion and language from Swedish rule and that Finland would have autonomy as a grand duchy within the Russian empire.

Borgå cathedral, and the skyline of the old town of Borgå, can be seen as the title photograph of this blog.

Picture in this blog entry, Borgå cathedral in the aftermath of May 2006’s fire. Photo source: Svenska Yle. Logo for the anniversary 200th year since the Borgå lantdag. Image source: Borgå stad.

Almost certainly the biggest celebration of the year in Finland is midsummer. Or rather midsummer eve, which is when the partying is done - although it naturally stretches into midsummer day’s earlier hours in the light night at the height of the summer time. Midsummer’s day is always the Saturday nearest to the longest day. That makes tomorrow’s midsummer eve.

It’s traditional on midsummer to do as on most other Finnish holidays - drink! Happily, midsummer is more than just this. Midsummer is celebrated slightly differently in Swedish-speaking areas than by the Finnish-speaking Finns. The main, most noticeable, difference will be the probable presence of the midsummer pole. This is a tradition that is shared with Sweden. The Finnish speakers light bonfires to celebrate. In some Swedish speaking areas (at least here in the south), there is sometimes a bonfire lit too. Swedish speaking Finns like to dance traditional midsummer dances around the midsummer pole, whilst Finnish speaking tradition is to do so around the fire. It’s probably fair to say that music and especially singing play a greater role in the Swedish-speaking celebrations - and of course, it’s a day where the snaps songs come out in force! The midsummer pole is essentially, just that, a pole of wood. It’s generally said to represent fertility. The design can differ according to where in the country you are. Sometimes it is a representation of a sailing ship’s mast (Swedish-speaking communities often have a close relationship with the water, given their locations). Various things are hang from them depending on the local tradition and they are generally topped by a flag (usually here in Nyland/Uusimaa the blue, white and yellow pendant of Swedish-speaking Nyland). Åland is famous for having the most elaborate poles - often so elaborate that the use of a winch is required to raise them! Fish, especially the pickled herring, is a strong point of the traditional food. Fresh new potatoes (absolutely preferably Finnish if they have arrived) are also a must.

Midsummer’s Day is also the official day of the Finnish flag. One should raise the flag on midsummer eve and not lower it until the following night. It’s the only time when the flag is allowed to fly overnight.

Unfortunately the weather forecast is a bit questionable just now. Let’s hope for a shower free evening tomorrow.

Trevlig midsommar!

Picture: Midsummer celebrations by Raseborg castle. Raseborg castle (near Ekenäs) is a good place to visit in the summer months. You can find information on visiting the castle and events taking place there at www.raseborg.org (although I’m sorry there is not much information in English).

Finland has a way to go yet until we can truly make a claim to being a multi-cultural society. Compared to the vast majority of western European countries, we have had fair less immigration. A contrast that is notable should you travel to our western neighbour Sweden, where more than one in ten persons where born outside of Sweden.

However, the government is now trying to encourage immigration. Just as in other European countries, this is made all the more necessary to fill jobs that Finnish people do not wish to perform. Finnish migration law and services are gradually being improved and reformed largely due to the efforts and leadership of Astrid Thors (sfp), Finland’s minister of migration.

One of the areas of our country that has shown the greatest success and most welcoming attitude towards immigrants is, interestingly, coastal Österbotten. Particularly the rural monolingual Swedish speaking municipality of Närpes has been recognised as the model to follow for integration. Immigrants have been welcomed into the community in a much more genuine and unanimous way than in many other areas of the country. Some have theorised that Swedish-speaking areas have been more accepting of immigrants because Swedish-speakers understand how it is to be in the position of a minority and are thus more accepting. The Swedish Peoples Party SFP is also very favourable in its views on immigration. There was even a line “Too few immigrants” in the last parliamentary election campaign song.

Now the main Swedish language newspapers in Österbotten (Vasabladet, Österbottens Tidning and Syd-Österbotten) have started publishing a regular update of translated news articles of interest to immigrants under the name GIIÖB. The languages are English, Serbian-Croat, Vietnamese and Russian.

You can read the first edition on Vasabladets website as a PDF.

Picture of Astrid Thors: Statsrådet, The Finnish government - Lehtikuva Oy/Ab. Second picture: Map of municipalities of Swedish-speaking Österbotten. The area on the western coast from Kristinestad in the south to Karleby (Kokkola) in the north.

Finland is famous for having being named as the world’s least corrupt country. This has been the result a number of times in recent years of the organisation Transparancy International’s survey. The Finnish media has always liked to trumpet this fact in the way that small countries do (understandably) like to enjoy moments when they are top of the league.

However, the ongoing party election financing scandal demands some serious reconsideration of our position as a land untroubled by corruption.

An interesting article in this morning’s Hufvudstadsbladet (HBL) reveals an interesting perspective on just why Finland is so clean in the eye’s of the transparency index.

According to Superintendent Jenni Klemola of the Central Criminal Police, who has for the last year been involved in a group actively following corruption cases in Finland, the explanation is simple. We simply don’t use the word corruption very much. She explained to HBL, “The difference between Finland and countries in southern Europe is that we talk about failures of duty, bribery and fraud without using the word ‘corruption’. In corresponding cases on the continent, the media would quickly scream out the news as a new corruption case being revealed.”

Klemola clarifies that there is no internationally agreed definition of corruption. Every country can create its own definition. “The word corruption doesn’t even appear in Finnish legislation. It’s also completely missing from party programmes”, she says.

“Transparency Index, which year after year announces Finland as one of the world’s least corrupt nations, does no scientific comparison to reach its conclusion. The measurement of the corruption index is built on expert statements. And because neither the Finnish media or legal system uses the word corruption, the experts draw the conclusion that the phenomenon doesn’t occur here.”

“Court cases that concern fraud, bribery and failures of duty are not considered. But now I’m waiting, with excitement, this autumn’s survey result”.

Kormela believes that that all forms of abuse of power for one’s own gain should be considered as corruption. Kormela goes on to say that “In Finland, the risk of corruption is greater when so many people have multiple positions of power - in politics, business and sport - that they can easily mix up.”

Kormela is suspicious of the entire Transparency Index. She points out that the index shows that Switzerland is side by side with Finland as one of the least corrupt countries in the world whilst many African nations are amongst the most corrupt - yet, many of the corrupt African heads of state almost certainly have their bank accounts in Swiss banks.

Meanwhile…

In other news, Centre party and Kokoomus (national coalition party) have their party conferences in Joensuu and Tampere/Tammerfors respectively over this weekend. The Centre party has perhaps received the most criticism during the election financing scandal.

Centre’s party secretary Jarmo Korhonen, who has been accused of being very much involved with the KMS scandal, defended robustly his position on the opening day yesterday (Friday). He told party delegates that he had been working very hard to get funds for the party - saying he’d been eating sometimes 3 lunches a day and suffering an upset stomach due to drinking so much coffee, all for the good of meeting people interested in donating money to the party funds. This went down well with the Centre party delegates. He claimed that the Social Democrats were the real capitalists, receiving the most financial backing. According to him, Centre also received less money than Kokoomus and were way down in 4th place - “even SFP get more money than us from some fund or other of theirs”.

Many of the delegates assembled in Joensuu blame the “capital city’s media” for blowing up the scandal, according to HBL. The Centre party enjoys the majority of its support from communities in rural, agrarian based Finnish-speaking Finland.

The Swedish Peoples’ Party (SFP) wrapped up its annual conference today in Åbo (Turku).

One of the main issues debated during the weekend was the issue of nuclear power. SFP has previously had an officially negative attitude on the use of nuclear energy. However, with climate change in mind and the need to find solutions to providing electricity without the use of expensive and dirty fossil fuels, the party has adopted a marginally more positive attitude towards the technology.  Delegates voted to describe SFP as “not an active instigator of nuclear power expansion”. Not exactly a glowing endorsement, but the motion supporting this policy line was clearly supported, defeating the alternative proposal that would have described the party as “opposed to an expansion of nuclear energy”. The motion continues to allow SFP’s parliament members to vote according to their own conviction in matters of nuclear energy - clearly allowing critiques of nuclear energy (Ulla-Maj Wideroos being probably the most obvious here) to vote against any future parliamentary measures supporting nuclear energy.

The party conference elected 28-year old Anna Bertils as a new vice party chairman. She replaces Monica Sirén-Aura who stood down. Bertils is from Vörå in Österbotten and was chairman of Svensk Ungdom (Swedish Youth - the party’s youth organisation) between 2005 and 2007. The two other vice chairmen, Sibbo municipal government chair Christel Liljeström and left-winger Nils Torvalds from Helsinki were reelected. German immigrant Gerd-Peter Löcke (who is known for campaigning for more support for immigrants who have integrated as Swedish-speakers) also stood for a vice chairmanship position, but was not successful.  Stefan Wallin, who is the minister of culture and sport in the government, was reelected unopposed as party chair/leader.

Image source: Svenska folkpartiet. You can find more photos from this year’s party conference on their website.

I have neglected this blog during the past week. Mainly because I’ve been busy at the office and that the weather has been so good; my free time has been occupied by putting it to good use. A lot is also on the go in Finnish current affairs. Here’s a quick summary of some of the ‘high’lights of the recent days.

Party funding scandal, Vanhanen’s Centre party in the spotlight

Parliamentarians, but most especially the government and more especially the Centre Party, are in turmoil due to campaign financing scandals. There’s so much to say on this that I can’t possibly manage it in this brief entry. And a new revelation seems to come out every day. Most of the worst news is, as said, surrounding the Centre party and financial grants given by a mysterious organisation called Kehittyvien Maakuntien Suomi (KMS, very liberally translated to “Finnish association for districts under development”) backed by various financiers - mainly businessmen (It should be said that KMS also gave grants to a much more limited number of members of other parties than Centre). There are various stories going about - was KMS founded in the office of the Centre party secretary Jarmo Korhonen? How much did prime minister Matti Vanhanen (centre) know about it? Did KMS money influence decisions made by the politicians who received it? Why is so much secrecy involved? Was it Centre party officials managing KMS’ bank account?

Frankly, it’s exhausting keeping up with it all! But in any case, Prime Minister Vanhanen is looking weakened and this morning’s Borgåbladet even reports that one betting company (Unibet) now thinks there’s a higher chance he will have resigned before the end of June than still be in the job on 1 July. As for now, he’s flown off to do a tour of Asia (where he amongst other things gave a strange speech in Seoul where he drawed upon the similarities of the Finnish and Korean languages). One amusing reader comment on the website of Vasabladet suggested that it might be best if he didn’t fly back. The bad news is that all Finnish politicians are looking less trustworthy amongst the electorate because of this scandal. It’s not good for encouraging the people’s participation in the democratic process when that process looks corrupt and broken. Expect new election financing laws already before the autumn as politicians try to regain the people’s trust.

Jutta Urpilainen is new Social Democrat leader

The Social Democrats elected a new party chairman yesterday at their conference in Hämeenlinna/Tavestehus. Jutta Urpilainen from Karleby in Österbotten becomes the SDP’s first female leader. In the second round of the party’s election, SDP delegates gave Urpilainen 218 votes, defeating former foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja who got 132 (both pictured). The choice of a youthful female leader (Urpilainen was born in 1975) will make it easier for SDP to change its image and present itself as a fresh alternative. Municipal elections are coming up this autumn and with Centre and Kokoomus faring worse (or at least getting worse publicity) in the above mentioned financial scandals, SDP should be looking to a good result. If the economic situation becomes more unstable - even more so.

Sfp party day in Åbo

The Swedish Peoples Party (SFP) holds its annual conference - the ‘party day’ - today in Åbo (Turku), in the shadow of the financing scandal (and indeed SDP’s leadership election). Sfp politicians and delegates will be hoping that they can avoid being tarred with the scandal brush in so much as is possible. KMS only gave money to one Sfp member during the last election campaign. That was party leader Stefan Wallin, who received 10 000 euro. However, he has said this he passed this on to Sfp’s general campaign fund for his Åboland constituency. Sfp has had its own mini-KMS type scandal. It was revealed recently that an almost equally mysterious organisation, Stiftelsen för ett tvåspråkigt Finland (’The Foundation for a Bilingual Finland’) provides a large amount of Sfp’s monetary resources. This foundation sourced its money from business leaders and Svenska kulturfonden (The Swedish Cultural Fund). This has been met with far, far less negative publicity than the KMS/Centre affair, largely because it was no great surprise to anyone that Svenska kulturfonden was providing money to Sfp. It was, if you like, a “well known secret.” When this came to light, Sfp party secretary Ulla Achrén immediately took responsibility for how these funds were shared out within Sfp and to members seeking election. This rather took the heat out of any possible scandal - particularly as her ‘trust’ is harder to call into question, as she is (unlike most other party secretaries in other Finnish political parties) is simply an employee of Sfp - rather than the holder of an elected office.

One of the main issues for this year’s conference will be energy - and in particular nuclear power. The party has indicated, in the context of climate change, that it wants to relook at its negative stance towards the building of further nuclear power stations in Finland. Members are however divided, so a lively debate can be expected.

Sfp will look to recent opinion surveys for a source of optimism; Hufvudstadsbladet reports that they have shown that support for Sfp has significantly strengthened amongst Swedish-speaking young people. It also shows that support from the wider Swedish-speaking population has improved slightly (to over 67%), at the expense of the SDP and Greens.

Swedish-speaking Finns are becoming all the more bilingual. That’s according to the latest trend from the Finland-Swedish Barometer survey.

According to researcher Kjell Herberts at the Institute for Finland-Swedish Future Research, one can read this trend by comparing the latest barometer results with surveys done in the past. In 1950, 46% of Swedish-speaking Finns asked said that they had a strong command of both national languages. According to the most recent research, 82% of Swedish-speaking Finns are of the opinion that they have a strong command of Finnish as well as Swedish. (Although it is apparently hard to make a totally accurate comparison, as the questions were asked differently in 1950 as to more recent surveys, and the question does not necessarily imply that one should be fluent in Finnish to give a positive response).

According to Herberts, the situation for Swedish in Finland is made more difficult by those Swedish-speaking Finns who so easily and willingly switch to using Finnish when accessing services. According to Herberts, it is also the case that the more bilingual one becomes, the easier it is to abandon one’s own language. Herberts, however, does not believe that the existence of Swedish in Finland is threatened in at least the short term.

The latest barometer survey also shows that Swedish-speaking young people are significantly less interested in politics than their Finnish-speaking counterparts. 77% of Swedish-speaking youths said that they were either not at all interested or not especially interested in politics.

A strange ring of light was seen over parts of western Finland yesterday, according to a report from Vasabladet (Vbl). I didn’t notice it from here in the countryside of Nyland (Uusimaa), so I don’t know if anyone elsewhere in the country got to see it.

The phenomenon, a ring of light surrounding the sun, is according to Vbl likely to have been a halo effect that can occur in certain weather conditions. Apparently a halo effect can appear when there is very high cloud made up of ice crystals. The ring effect is created as the light passes through the ice.

This is particularly coincidental for anyone (such as myself) who is currently enjoying following the tv drama series ‘Sthlm‘ (i.e. Stockholm) on SVT Europa (the last episode is on Monday 2.6. at 22.00 Finnish time). Every episode beings with a scene of a sighting of a similar light phenomenon over the present day Swedish capital. When this really did occur over Stockholm on 20 April 1535, the citizens of the capital of the kingdom believed it meant disaster was about to follow. Let’s hope that’s not what follows in Vasa.

First picture: Yesterday’s (real) phenomenon over Vasa, from Vasabladet . Second picture: (Presumably computer generated!) image from SVT’s drama series ‘Sthlm’.

The American Navy is to begin searching for the Kaleva today. The Junkers JU52 aircraft belonging to Aero (the predecessor of today’s Finnair) disappeared a little north of the Estonian coast in June 1940 after being shot down by the Soviet airforce. There were nine people on board. The plane had taken off from Tallinn for Helsinki.

At the time, Finland and the Soviet Union were not yet at war. However, the USSR was already planning its occupation of Estonia by blockading it. It’s been reported that a Soviet navy submarine picked up diplomatic post and other wreckage from the surface of the sea after Kaleva was shot down.

According to Yle, one of those on board was the courier of the American Embassy in Helsinki. He had been in Tallinn to collect vital diplomatic post and items from the USA’s embassy in the Estonian capital.

Estonian defence minister Jaak Aaviksoo requested the search effort from his US counterpart, defence minister Robert Gates. The wreckage of Kaleva is believed to be approximately 30 km north of Tallinn.

Our blue and white national flag celebrates its 90th anniversary today. The law determining the Finnish flag as the familiar blue cross on white was made on 29 May 1918. It is said that the blue represents the numerous lakes of our country whilst the white represents the snow in winter that blankets the landscape (an alternative, more controversial view, would say it represents the victory of the whites in the civil war). The cross design represents unity with the other Nordic countries.

My flag is flying high outside my house today, as it is outside homes, apartment blocks and on public buildings throughout the nation. It’s a symbol that represents all Finnish people.

And yet historically, it has been the role of an organisation called Suomalaisuuden liitto (Finskhetsförbundet - Finnish alliance) to give information on Finland’s flag to the public. This organisation is a Finnish extreme right nationalist group that has, in recent years, become yet more extreme. These days, under the chairmanship of the controversial Heikki Tala, the organisation campaigns for the elimination of Swedish in Finland. Even longing for a future where Åland is Finnish speaking. According to Suomalaisuuden liitto, there is a campaign to ‘Swedify’ Finland - apparently this is being carried out by us Swedish speakers with help from Sweden’s government (the suggestion is so self-evidently ludicrous it’s not even worth making further comment upon). In the past, the organisation received a grant from the state to fund its work in promoting our national flag. Finally, after many protests from politicians from both language groups, the parliament voted in 2002 to end this subsidy. This came after a scandal where it turned out Suomalaisuuden liitto was absolutely refusing to give any information on Finland’s flag in Swedish. The move to increasing extremism has been largely because of extreme right wingers taking over positions of power in the organisation. Even former chairman Martti Häikiö said that “the association has ended up in the hands of the mad fundamentalists”. Today, the organisation has slightly over 1000 members.

Why do I make this point? Still, on the morning of Independence Day (6 December) it is Suomalaisuuden liitto who has the honour of organising raising our national symbol, the flag, at Tähtitorninmäki - Observatorieberget in Helsinki. This is usually done in the presence of the President of the Republic. In my opinion it is time for this to end. A more unifying group should be chosen. Finland’s flag is a symbol of the entire Finnish people. To have a group of extremists who are openly intolerant against one group in society organising the raising of a flag that represents everyone is deeply inappropriate and offensive. The President of the Republic’s presence also affirms recognition that this group is somehow appropriate and representative. I think this December, in our 91st year of independence, and 90th with our national flag, it’s time to invite a more unifying group to organise the raising of our flag. Perhaps veterans from the wars, today’s military, representatives from cultural life (maybe from the Finnish, Swedish and Sami language groups together). The options are numerous. But certainly not a group that represents only the views of a very narrow and small xenophobic minority.

The Swedish-language department of Finland’s public service broadcaster, Yle, is again being forced to make cut backs to its offering.

Currently the main editions of the news bulletin programme ‘TV-nytt’ are broadcast at 18.15 and 20.00 (with a shorter 5 minute summary later in the evening on weekdays). The 15 minute long 18.15 broadcast has been established in that time slot since 1996. The 20 minute main 20.00 edition has existed since FST (Finland’s Swedish Television) received its own channel when digital tv started (previously FST existed as slots on Yle’s TV1 and TV2).

The latest cost cutting exercise means that the separate main 18.15 and 20.00 will be scrapped in favour of only one programme to be broadcast at 19.30. It will last 25 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of sport news. This is the same time as Channel 4 (Nelonen, a commercial channel) transmits its main evening news. There will also be a 5 minute bulletin at the crazy time of 17.25 which coincides with the Swedish language flagship hour long 17.00 radio news edition of Aktuellt on Radio Vega. The late evening edition of Tv-nytt will be extended to 10 minutes.

There is also talk of the Swedish language news department having to share the Finnish language news studio. This would be possible with these new proposed times (during which Yle doesn’t have any scheduled Finnish language news transmissions.) If this should go ahead, one must wonder what would happen in the instance of a crisis where TV-Nytt needs to stay on the air to cover a major event. Plus, it will inevitably lead to a watering down of the Swedish language news’ own identity on screen. The Finnish language news department is not going to tailor its studio to meet any specific needs of TV-Nytt. TV-nytt only just got a new studio, about 6 months ago.

The twice weekly in-depth current affairs analysis programme ‘Obs’ is also threatened by these cut backs; there is talk it will either lose one edition per week or disappear entirely. Apparently Yle’s excuse is that with a 25 minute long main edition of TV-nytt, there will be plenty of time for analysis already during that programme. This seems to be rather naive - not everyone wants to sit through indepth analysis during the main news. And with a loss of two bulletins which did have a slightly different feel (the 18.15 concentrates a little more on local events around Swedish speaking Finland), how will they fit it all in to the 19.30 if they are going to have to stuff in the in-depth stuff there too.

It seems the staff of TV-Nytt and Yle’s Swedish department are less than happy with the changes. According to Vasabladet, TV-Nytt’s news director Gunilla Löfstedt-Söderholm said she was concerned that the programme would lose viewers because of this as it’s not the same people who watch the 18.15 and 20.00 bulletins. “This is a sad decision. TV-Nytt has been transmitted around 18.00 since the 1960s. Establishing new habits amongst viewers takes many years”.

The savings also threaten Swedish Yle’s international correspondents. Although according to the director of the whole of Swedish Yle, Annika Nyberg-Frankenhaeuser, they will be retained. Personnel cutbacks are likely to hit part time employees.

All of this is very sad news. Especially coming so soon after Radio X3M (Yle’s Swedish language pop music/youth radio station) was saved from threatened closure after large scale public protests. Also, digitalisation promised us more domestically produced programming in Swedish with the greater amount of time available to broadcast through FST having its own channel. Now it seems that this promise is to be broken.

Pictures: Copyright Rundradion Ab. First:TV-Nytt studio with Gunilla Löfstedt-Söderström at the desk. From Svenska Yle’s webpages. Second: from programme ‘Obs’.

So was the title of Björn Månsson’s interesting leader article in this morning’s Hufvudstadsbladet.

Revisiting the issue of a separate European parliament seat to represent Åland (as Åland politicians are demanding) or for the wider group of all Swedish-speaking Finns (as Henrik Lax and some others have raised), the leader article unveils some interesting facts which make the demand not so unreasonable as it might have previously seemed.

Månsson draws the reader to the attention of the case of the German-speaking minority in Belgium. Like Åland, they have their own parliament and effective autonomy in their own region. The German minority in Belgium are around 73 000 people - rather more than Åland (around 27 000) but small compared to the total number of around 300 000 Swedish-speaking Finns. Yet, the German-speaking Belgians are guaranteed their own place in the European parliament. And that’s despite their proportion of the entire Belgian population being only 0,7 %. Swedish-speaking Finns make up around 6 % of Finland’s population; Ålanders account for about 0,5 %. Looking at those statistics, it’s harder to argue against a specific Swedish-speaking mandate.

Månsson goes on to highlight the case of the German-speaking minority in Italy, the residents of South Tirol. They also have, practically, a safe seat in the European parliament. What’s especially interesting here is that this German minority is around 290 000 in number - i.e. more or less exactly the same in number as the Swedish-speaking Finns. Yet, looking at them as a proportion of Italy’s entire population, they comprise just 0,5 % - a percentage that is equivalent to Åland’s share of Finland’s people. Surely then, Åland’s demands for its own seat in the EU parliament are entirely reasonable.

Perhaps it’s not as easy as that. Månsson points out that it’s much easier for Italy to give away one seat to a minority as due to Italy’s large overall population it gets an entire 78 places in the EU parliament. But for Finland, with only 13 European parliament mandates, giving one mandate away to a district of just 0,5% of the people would seem highly inequitable.

So, perhaps Finland should ask the EU for an extra seat to be given to Åland. According to Hufvudstadsbladet, that seems an unlikely option. The EU has thrown that option out of the window for fear of opening a Pandora’s box where all of Europe’s autonomous areas demand their own individual seat. So, perhaps the second option is to give a mandate to the entire Swedish-speaking population. According to Månsson, that could be secured by introducing a requirement for one of Finland’s MEPs to have Swedish as their mother tongue.

For me, a Swedish speaking mandate sounds impracticable. If we were to use the suggestion in this Hbl leader, how would we make sure that the electorate vote in one MEP with Swedish as their mother tongue? If the first 13 people elected all have Finnish as their mother tongue, do you deprive number 13 of his or her seat and install the most popular Swedish-speaker even if they got a lot less votes than any in the top 13? Surely that would cause an outcry - not least in some quarters of the Finnish language press. It would also be impossible to create a geographic voting district - Finnish and Swedish speakers live side by side. Svenskfinland is not a clear cut geographic entity.

In any case, even if there were to be a Swedish-speaking seat created, would the people of Åland be satisfied? As Månsson writes, probably not. There are many people on Åland who don’t even consider themselves Swedish-speaking Finns (finlandssvenskar). For them, they are Ålanders (ålänningar) - and that is a status apart. For them, it’s only direct representation for Åland - and Åland alone - that will do.

This year’s Stafettkarneval has began at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki. The athletics competition is contested by teams representing Swedish-speaking schools across Finland. It is organised by Svenska Finlands Skolidrottsförbund -School Athletics Association of Swedish Finland (SFSI).

The event was first held in 1961, being the idea of Carl-Olof Holmén who had taken part as part of the University of Deleware’s team in the 1960 Penn Relay in USA. This event was to inspire Holmén who was enthused by this experience and thus established a similar event for Swedish speaking Finland once he became the chairman of SFSI later in that same year.

In the first competition in 1961 at Djurgården’s sportfield, 601 runners took part. Already that made it the largest ever school sports competition in Swedish speaking Finland. By the following year, there were already over 1000 competitions. By its third, the competitor count passed 1 500. The event had grown so much, that by only its fourth year it moved venues to the Olympic Stadium. This has been the home of Stafettkarnevalen ever since - with the exception of during four years where the event took place in Vasa or Karleby due to renovation work at the Olympic Stadium.

The number of competitors has continued to rise. In recent years, Stafettkarnevalen has become the biggest annual school athletics competition in the whole of Europe, with more than 10 000 entrants.

The 100 000 euro costs of staging the competition are met by sponsors. All officials and management teams are unpaid.

2008’s event sees a record number of starters - 10 228. The President of the Republic, Tarja Halonen, will attend day 2 of the event tomorrow.

You can follow the competition live via Radio X3M and a television highlights programme will be transmitted on FST5 on Tuesday at 21.00. All the results are also available via the competition’s official website: www.stafettkarnevalen.fi/resultat

The Swedish Assembly of Finland, Folktinget, has officially reported the Finance Ministry to the Parliament’s Justice ombudsman. The reason for this is that the Finance Ministry requested the official opinion only in Finnish of 11 municipalities who have Swedish as their majority language. The opinions were requested regarding the proposal to close the Magistrate districts of Raseborg and Åboland.

Despite enquiries by the municipalities concerned, the ministry failed to send the documents in Swedish.

Folktinget considers that the Finance Ministry has broken the Language Act. According to the law, state authorities should communicate to a municipality using the municipality’s majority language.

The chair of Folktinget, Ulla-Maj Wideroos said “The Finance Ministry has broken the Language Act and furthermore done so in a matter that has great significance for the Swedish-speaking population. We can not accept such infringements of the law. It can not be accepted that authorities ignore the Language Act.”

The Finance Ministry’s documents were requesting official opinions of municipalities on the ministry’s proposal to close Raseborg magistrate and Åboland magistrate, both of which have Swedish as their majority language. According to the ministry’s proposal, the magistrate activities of these areas would be incorporated into respectively Esbo (Espoo) magistrate and Åbo (Turku) city and district magistrates - both of which would have Finnish as the majority language.

Thursday’s editions of Jakobstads Tidning and Österbottningen will be the last ever issues of each daily newspaper. Jakobstads Tidning has been published from Jakobstad (Pietarsaari) for the last 110 years. Österbottningen, Karleby’s (Kokkola) newspaper, has 125 years of history behind it. From Friday, the new merged newspaper Österbottens Tidning will come out for the first time as a replacement.

Staff of the two newspapers’ production team spent today putting together the last editions of their independent newspapers. Jakobstads Tidning will print a special 52 page edition tomorrow; its last edition coincides with its 110th anniversary edition.

Staff of both newspapers gathered outside their offices in Jakobstad and Karleby at the end of their working day and symbolically lowered the flags bearing their newspaper’s logo. They then raised the new flag of Österbottens Tidning, the first edition of which they will be working on from tomorrow. They then celebrated with champagne.

So, Svenskfinland and specifically northern Österbotten loses two of its daily newspapers from the end of tomorrow. But gains a new voice on Friday.

In other media news, the European Union’s competition directorate yesterday gave its approval for Finland’s subsidies to minority language newspapers. The Finnish state gives grants of support to fund  Swedish language news agency services and newspapers with small circulations. Money is also given to activities in the Sami language. Folktinget (The Swedish assembly of Finland) and the Sami Assembly are the bodies that propose to the Communications Ministry which publications should receive state subsidies.

The image is copyright Jakobstads Tidning. It shows JT staff witnessing chief editor Henrik Othman lower Jakobstads Tidning’s flag for the last time.

The planned court reform which threatens the independence of small courts worries both their personnel and municipalities, according to a report from Radio Vega’s local channel in Åboland. At the forefront of concerns, is the risk of poorer services and the inability to speak one’s mother tongue.

The Swedish-speaking staff at the court district of Pargas which serves Åboland are concerned that the working language, which is largely Swedish currently, will be Finnish after the reform. According to them, this is something that would complicate their daily lives. In the case that Finnish becomes the working language, the step to the client being unable to receive services in Swedish to the degree they can today is not long.

According to chief judge Erkki Hämäläinen at Åbo (Turku) court district (to which Pargas will be merged according to the reform plans), there is no reason for concern.  He considers it pleasant that the Swedish speakers speak their mother tongue and believes that they can do this also in the future. He also believes that the fact Swedish will be heard in the corridors will be of benefit to those staff that have Finnish as their mother tongue.

According to Radio Åboland, it’s not just the court staff that are concerned over the reform - municipalities are also. With them, it is also the position of the Swedish language that causes concern. According to Pargas’ municipal director Folke Öhman, it is vital that municipalities guarantee that Swedish services continue at the current good level in the future. According to Öhman, it seems that these days everything is decided in advance and that reform has become an end in itself.

Chief judge Erkki Hämäläinen at Åbo court regards the criticisms as unjustifiable and does not believe in the municipalities’ concerns that the status of Swedish will worsen with the planned reform.

New mothers in Finland are given the option of receiving a ‘maternity box’ by the National Insurance Fund (FPA, Kela) containing various items of use when caring for a new baby. The contents is updated regularly and a few weeks ago, the 2008 ‘version’ was released.

The release of the new box has provoked some unexpectedly strong reactions amongst a small minority of Finnish speakers. According to an editorial article printed on Wednesday 14.5. in the Finnish-language newspaper Keskipohjanmaa (published in Kokkola/Karleby) the new box contains pro-Sfp (Swedish peoples’ party) propaganda.

Presumably this wild and bizarre (and false) accusation by the article’s writer, a Jouni Nikula, comes from the fact that the latest maternity box includes, amongst its various leaflets, a bilingual brochure called Ge ditt barn en gåva - Anna lapsellesi lahja (’Give your child a gift’). The leaflet, which is actually produced by Folktinget - The Swedish Assembly of Finland, and not Sfp or any other political party, is about bilingualism. It offers advice and support for parents who wish to bring up their child to speak both Finnish and Swedish.

How on earth anyone could find the inclusion of this leaflet a threat or dangerous is beyond me. Surely everyone should appreciate the benefits of being able to speak more than one language. Anyone that is offended by a leaflet in more than one language (and I suspect this particular offence was caused by the other language being Swedish) must surely be suffering from at least some form of mild xenophobia. Or are there really some Finnish-speakers in roles of newspaper editorial writers (in bilingual towns!) who, in 2008, find the existence of Swedish-speaking Finns or even bilingual Finns something not to be desired?

The picture is from the website of the National Insurance Fund. It shows the contents of the 2008 maternity box. For those that are interested, you can find pictures (and description) of the entire contents on the website of the National Insurance Fund: http://www.fpa.fi/in/internet/svenska.nsf/NET/010403100821MP [SV]

Finland beat Sweden 4-0 in the bronze medal match at the World Icehockey Championships in Canada last night. It’s great that Finland take away a medal from the tournament after widely being tipped to perform badly at this event. And I must admit, it always feels good to beat the Swedes!

Finland’s goal tender Niklas Bäckström played an exceptionally good game. The shots on goal statistics back that up. The Swedes had 36 shots on goal against our 13. However, Bäckström’s performance meant Sweden came away scoreless.  Antti Pihlström (who played a great game) scored twice for Finland. Janne Niskala and Mikko Koivu were the other Finnish goal scorers.

The game was the last for Teemu Selänne in the Finnish national team after 124 appearances.

Crown Princess Victoria will arrive in Mariehamn this evening on a two day long visit to Åland. It’s the first time Åland  has received an official visit from a member of the Swedish royal family since it received autonomy in 1921.

The run up to the event has been covered in Åland’s media (which is vibrant for a population of around 25 000, with 2 daily newspapers and 2 radio channels) widely and Åland is expecting many members of the Finnish mainland’s press to cover the event. The Swedish royal family are always popular fare in Finnish tabloids and gossip magazines.

Mariehamn has also been planning for the visit by the heir to the Swedish throne, with many buildings around the main square getting a fresh lick of paint. During Thursday, when people will have a chance to meet the crown princess in the main square, drivers can expect traffic problems as parking places are closed down and roads closed.

The newspaper Nya Åland reports that royalist football fans will face a difficult decision. Crown Princess Victoria is scheduled to arrive at the main square in Mariehamn at the same time as kick-off is scheduled for IFK Mariehamn’s league match against VPS (from Vasa) - 18.30

The soon to be established town of Raseborg unveiled the design of its new municipal shield today. The design is comprised of a green shield with eight white wood anemone flowers upon it. The shield is crowned by a castle-like crown with five towers, a reference to Raseborg castle.

Raseborg will be formed on 1 January 2009 as a merger of the existing municipalities of Ekenäs, Karis and Pojo (Pohja). The eight flowers on the shield symbolise the previous eight original districts in the previous county of Raseborg. The new town will have a population of 28 000 citizens, of which Swedish-speakers will comprise approximately 67%. The town of Hangö and municipality of Ingå opted to remain as independent entities but where involved in the initial discussions.

The building of the new town has not been without some wrangling. Politicians from Ekenäs, Karis and Pojo have had to decide where the new administrative units will be placed and whom will get the top jobs. As a consequence of the merger, street signs in Pojo will be renewed to place the Swedish text above the Finnish. Independent Pojo has a Finnish speaking majority (59,5%). The citizens of Ekenäs, Karis and Pojo will vote together in municipal elections for the first time already this autumn.

Svenska kulturfonden, the Swedish cultural fund, celebrated its 100th anniversary yesterday with a large party and celebration at the Finlandia house in Helsinki. 1 000 guests joined the celebration with dancers, choirs, circus artists, rock bands, musicians and many more from around Swedish-speaking Finland providing the entertainment alongside traditional staples such as the singing of Modersmålets sång (Song of the Mother Tongue) and Vårt land (Our Land, Finland’s national anthem - The Swedish language lyrics from a poem by J L Runeberg are in fact the original).

In connection with the event, Kulturfonden awarded a record sum in prizes, grants and scholarships. A total of 15 million euros were given out during the festivities. The stand-up comic André Wickström (who is also well known in Sweden) and the ceramic artist Karin Widnäs were amongst the bigger prize winners, winning 20 000 € each.

After the party, Kulturfonden provided a dinner for 500 invited guests.

Kulturfonden works to support and strengthen the Swedish language in Finland, to develop skills, competence, creativity and solidarity amongst Swedish-speaking Finns. Today, Kulturfonden has financial reserves about double the size of Sweden’s Nobel Foundation and around the same size as the Finnish language equivalent Suomen kulttuurirahasto.

The Swedish Peoples’ Party (Sfp) has set a goal of increasing its number of votes by at least one thousand in the autumn’s municipal elections (when compared to those of 4 years ago).

Sfp is hoping it can offer 1 500 candidates of which half should be women and with an increased number of young people and recent immigrants to Finland than in its previous election campaigns.

According to party chairman Stefan Wallin, this year’s election will be particularly challenging for Sfp as many municipalities are merging creating an unpredictable and new dynamic in many localities.

Some municipalities that are merging with Finnish language dominated neighbours will present a particular challenge for Sfp with the number of Swedish speakers decreasing as a proportion. It will be vital for Sfp to mobilise its electorate to enable Swedish speakers to maintain their representation in municipal councils and governments at the same level.

Sfp has announced that its election theme will be fairness and equality. According to Sfp, individuals must have the right to be treated equally and fairly by all authorities regardless of their background or linguistic group. Municipalities should also be treated fairly by the state, which appears to be a clear reference to the Sibbo drama where the views of Sibbo’s inhabitants were overridden by Helsinki and the central government.

UPDATE Wednesday 16.27

It seems the association for Fair Trade which also uses the term Fairness in its campaigning is unhappy with Sfp’s usage of the same term.

Sfp has designed a campaign logo, a Fairness label/stamp design. Party secretary Ulla Achrén said that Sfp would be a party of fairness, with candidates standing for fairness and for policies of fairness.

Janne Sivonen who is the communications director at Association of the Advancement of Fair Trade in Finland was disappointed at this news, he told Svensk presstjänst: “This is certainly to mislead consumers. The ‘Fair Trade mark’ is a registered trademark in Europe and a guarantee that a product meets international fair trade criteria. Sfp has not asked us for permission to use the slogan. We will be discussing this matter with them.”

The Minister of Culture and Sport Stefan Wallin (sfp) has repeated his belief that there should be more women in positions of leadership in Finland.

According to FNB (STT) via Hufvudstadsbladet, the chairman of the Swedish Peoples Party said today that “Women are often higher educated than men and make up almost half of the Finnish labour force. Yet, that’s not seen in leadership positions. In 2006, only around a fifth of all persons in positions of leadership were women.”

Wallin expressed particular disappointment that the percentage of women on the boards of publically traded companies had increased so slowly. Only 12 % of board members are female.

That’s the opinion of the minister of defence, Jyri Häkämies (national coaltion Kokoomus party). Häkämies told the Finnish Atlantic Society that the Nordic countries’ influence in defence matters would markedly increase if Finland and Sweden joined Norway, Denmark and Iceland as members in the Nato defence alliance. Häkämies believes that the Nordic region would be more secure from a military perspective and that Nato membership would improve and enhance the opportunities for a common planning of regional defence leading to greater efficiency and cost savings.

Häkämies also said that a common Nordic front within Nato would also be of advantage when considering that Russia is regaining some of its former strength. Häkämies previously caused debate when he made a speech in Washington saying that “Russia, Russia, Russia” was Finland’s key foreign policy challenge. This was quickly played down by both prime minister Matti Vanhanen (centre) and president Tarja Halonen.

With known Nato enthusiast Alexander Stubb (Kokoomus) also now in government, it seems that the highest levels of Finnish government are increasingly positive towards Nato. It remains to be seen what effect continued media prominence on the Nato issue will have on Finnish public opinion, which according to the most recent polls is still generally negative towards any Nato membership application.

photo: Statsrådets kansli / Lehtikuva Ab

The Minister of Justice, Tuija Brax (green) has stated that she would support a sinking of the voting age (currently 18 ) to allow all those aged 16 years and above to vote. Minister Brax said she thinks this would increase the engagement of younger voters in political matters earlier. Members of other political parties, including some Swedish peoples’ party (Sfp) members and Left Alliance members have also stated this in the past.

Personally, I don’t have particularly strong feelings either in support or opposition to this. I suppose the arguments against a sinking of the voting age would be that younger people tend to be immature and thus could perhaps not be capable of making an informed decision on who to vote for - or that they haven’t grown up enough yet to sufficiently understand their own views. Personally, through having 2 children (and from more or less remembering being one myself!), I think such an attitude is rather pompous and underestimates many 16- and 17-year olds. Frankly, I think there’s probably a lot of people well over 18 who are still rather less mature then many 16- and 17-year olds; in other words, there are people who probably don’t make particularly informed choices long after they celebrate their 18th year.

The only really strong reason to keep things at 18 that I can think of is that 18 is the age of becoming an adult - it’s a marker point for many other things, whether it be drinking, smoking, driving etc. For simple reasons of being uniform and neat and tidy, keeping it at 18 is attractive. Also, you could argue that all the electorate ought to be 18 as they are in theory electing people who will make decisions on things like drinking, smoking, driving. You could, at a stretch, argue that people who are less than 18 shouldn’t be voting to influence decisions on things that the law doesn’t consider them mature enough to engage in yet.

We will see what happens. Certainly, anything that would engage younger people in the political process is worth investigating. As I’ve previously written, I have a lot of time for Tuija Brax. She comes across to me as a very capable member of our government and seems to have a good record in her decision making. Therefore, perhaps her instinct on this matter is also correct.

The First of May is a public holiday in Finland, traditionally a day of political activities (marches by political groups and speeches by various politicians from all parties - notably in Sweden and many other countries, it’s exclusively the left of centre that does this, in Finland it’s become a more general day for politics). The day before (30th April) is called, in Swedish, Valborgsmässoafton or more commonly Valborg - or here in Finland, often in Finland-Swedish Vappen (Vappu in Finnish). This is most especially a day for the university students, but often all of us who graduated from school wear our white student caps at some point. Everyone can join in the parties and general fun of the day, which is traditionally seen as the marker of the start of spring.

So, perhaps you’re a foreigner in Finland, and aren’t quite sure what to do on Valborg. Here’s a beginner’s guide.

Picnic. It’s not really the done thing to eat inside on Valborg. After all, spring is here. So, grab some sausages and get the grill out. It’s sausages/hotdogs that rule the day of Valborg cuisine.

Feel cold. Unfortunately, the Finnish weather is often not as aware that it’s the beginning of spring as we perhaps would like it to be. On Valborg, one generally feels cold at some point because we’ve managed to convince ourselves in advance that it’s practically the beginning of summer. Either that or you’re too drunk to realise that a t-shirt and shorts doesn’t work in a sleet storm.

Summer house party. Well, as it’s practically summer, often the partying takes place in the summer house - for perhaps the first time of the year. A restaurant or bar would just be too “indoors”, and if it really is too cold then the summer house is still a respectable component of the out of doors summer lifestyle.

Beer. Booze. Well, probably you’ve realised that drinking is a major part of most Finnish holidays. This one is no exception and perhaps only second to midsummer in terms of drunkeness. And you can’t beat a good cold beer on the warm spring day of Valborg… hmm. (If you in a city, it’s a good idea to watch where you’re walking the next morning - the pavements often show evidence of the “aftermath”).

Speech. If your (un)lucky, especially in some Swedish-speaking areas, somebody prominent in the local community (usually some old guy, who has already had a little too much to drink by this time) will make a speech to welcome the spring. If there’s a cold wind, rain, sleet or even snow, this will generally increase in strength at this point.

So, enjoy the festivities. And remember to stock up on headache pill in advance! Glada vappen!

I will be back with more regular blogging soon. Right now, it’s holiday time. And aside from that, I’ve been very busy with some work projects of late.

Finnish politicians, or at least those in the governing coalition, appear to be split on whether or not they should boycott the summer olympic games in Beijing.

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (centre party) has made it clear that he will attend the opening ceremony and stay for a few days to watch events with Finns competing in them. He made it clear that he thought that Olympics is a sporting event and not a political one. Vanhanen’s decision has been criticised by all of the candidates for the chairmanship of the opposition SDP. Although, interestingly, it seems that President Tarja Halonen (who is a nominal social democrat, although Finnish presidents resign party membership when elected) will attend.

The Minister of Culture and Sport Stefan Wallin (Swedish peoples’ party Sfp) has made it clear that he will be on his summer holiday during the period of the Olympics, with no further comment, clearly trying to avoid entering into the controversy.

Today, in a prominent difference of opinion with the prime minister, the foreign minister Alexander Stubb (coalition party Kokoomus) said that he wouldn’t attend if he were invited. He did say he thought it would be ok to participate if China began negotiations with the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama. Clearly, Stubb does not share Vanhanen’s opinion that the olympics is just a sporting event.

From both the statements and the actions of the Chinese government, it’s hard to see how the games are removed from politics. The Chinese domestic media’s coverage of the worldwide torch relay has clear propaganda undertones, with the protests that dogged the torch’s progress in places like London, Paris and San Francisco glossed over and choice pictures of the flame with dignitaries emphasised (and often the only pictures shown). The Chinese government were probably hoping to use the Beijing Olympics as the ultimate propaganda tool - a way to make China look great and impressive on the world stage and show their own people that China is popular abroad, with world leaders there sharing in China’s achievement. Their plans for this have horribly back-fired, with it instead focusing the world’s gaze towards China’s human rights abuses. It’s hard not to imagine the Communist party’s top officials cursing over ever applying to host them.

Sport, ideally, should be apolitical. It would be grossly unfair to prevent the athletes from attending and competing at the games. After all, many of them will have spent the entirity of the last 4 years (if not longer) preparing for olympic competition. It would be cruel to deprive them of their chance to compete. However, politicians do not need to be at a sporting event for it to take place. In fact, politicians - who are, to state the obvious, political in nature - give the event a political aspect by their very attendance. People like Vanhanen and Halonen are, after all, not going as private people to spectate. They’re going to represent Finland by virtue of their political roles. So, it’s rather rich for them to suggest there’s nothing political about the games in that context. Thus, I do think they should reconsider their decisions to go. They can send a message to the Chinese regime that they will not endorse a country which is grossly violating human rights by staying at home. Better still, they can use the Olympics as leverage. Tell China they’ll come - but only if China improves its human rights situation markedly and starts talking to the Dalai Lama. This event might be the only opportunity the rest of the world has this much leverage over China for a long time. Perhaps our politicians use take it.

A Pirate Party has now been established in Finland, according to the newspaper Turun Sanomat. The party’s main policy is to loosen regulations surrounding copyright.

The group has modelled itself on Sweden’s longer-established Pirate Party which has the aim of legalising the sharing of materials such as films, music and games via file-sharing services on the internet. According to the law, such activity is at present illegal and a breach of copyright. It must be said, that the Swedish party has not received many votes in Swedish elections since its founding but has had some success in bringing debate on copyright law higher up the political agenda. The Swedish Left Party (which is represented in the Swedish parliament) has said that it now supports an easing of copyright restrictions, so long as file-sharing doesn’t become commercial.

Because I know how much you all like gossip (but of course, would never admit to) - and because I don’t have much time at the moment to write something more intellectual (or at least lenghier!), here’s a picture of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (centre) together with his girlfriend Sirkka Mertala from yesterday evening. They are seen being received by the President of the Republic Tarja Halonen at the annual dinner for foreign diplomats at the president’s palace in Helsinki. It’s the first time they’ve appeared together in public since the Emma Gala (music awards) at the beginning of March.

To bring a glimmer of credibility to this posting, Hufvudstadsbladet reports that President Halonen used her dinner speech to speak on the topic of climate change, international development funding and Finland’s role in the international community. She emphasised the effect of climate change on the lives of women in poor developing countries.

Picture: Lehtikuva/Jussi Nukari via Hufvudstadsbladet’s website

Sacked foreign minister Ilkka Kanerva (Kokoomus national coalition party) has spoken to the newspaper Turun Sanomat about the events that led to his dismissal by his party.

Kanerva criticised Kokoomus party leader Jyrki Katainen for altering his stance over night. Both Katainen and prime minister Matti Vanhanen (centre) has assured that Kanerva had their full trust on several occasions before his sacking. According to Kanerva, Katainen’s decision to fire him undermines Vahanen’s attempts to protect politicians’ private lives and gives a signal to the media that private lives are now fair game.

Kanerva expressed his surprise that his 200 SMS text messages to an erotic dancer have caused such a stir. According to Kanerva, his sacking over such a small affair as text messages is unique in an international context. As an example, Kanerva pointed to the former US president Bill Clinton who was involved in an affair with a low-racked White House worker which he at first denied. Despite this, Clinton stayed in post.

The sacked foreign minister believes that the publication by the gossip magazine Hymy of a selection of his messages is clearly illegal as the constitution guarantees the privacy of all correspondence. However, he has ruled out taking legal action.

Kanerva bitterly said to the newspaper that his life’s work had now gone to waste.

There’s been a couple of wrangles over what thin