He is the probable future Prime Minister. The winner of the legislative elections in Finland, Petteri Orpo, announced on Thursday that he wanted to form a government coalition with the nationalist anti-immigration formation which came second in this election. Official negotiations to form a government, which will begin on May 2, will bring together the National Coalition (centre right) which he leads and the Finns Party (extreme right).
As well as two other small parties, announced Petteri Orpo, 53, during a press conference in Helsinki. Such an alliance with the Party of Finns, which won 20.1% of the vote in the legislative elections of April 2, would mean that a new anti-immigration formation would find itself in power in Europe, against a backdrop of pressure from populist parties or extreme right in several countries of the continent.
“No insurmountable differences”
Petteri Orpo had two options for forming a coalition: either to ally with the centre-left, with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) of resigning Prime Minister Sanna Marin, or choose to unite with the Party of Finns, with which the main point of divergence concerns immigration.
“There are of course differences between the parties. And, certainly, as we know, there are issues on which these different visions exist,” he told reporters. But at the end of preliminary discussions over the past few weeks, “we collectively felt that these issues could be resolved. There are no insurmountable differences,” said Petteri Orpo.
The Ministry of Finance in sight
The right has already governed with the Party of Finns (ex-True Finns) between 2015 and 2017, the date of a split within the eurosceptic formation which had resulted in a harder line.
Members of coalitions in the Finnish Parliament traditionally inherit ministerial positions, and the second party in power usually takes the position of finance minister. The other two small parties in the possible future coalition are the Christian Democratic Party and the Swedish-speaking party, traditional allies of the Finnish right.