Brussels, 03/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - The “True Finns” party has repeated its opposition to any bailout of Portugal, at the same time as the official negotiations over the formation of a coalition government have kicked off (a new parliament will be decided by Thursday 19 May 2011, see EUROPE 10364). “We cannot with good conscience support Portugal's [rescue] package, nor the creation of a permanent bailout mechanism”, the party said in a written statement on 2 May, adding: “Neither do we approve the hike of Finland's guarantees in the temporary stability mechanism”. The leader of True Finns, Timo Soini, commented: “There have been attempts to control the crisis with these measures for more than a year, with no success: now we're on the brink of collapse. Every step forward on this strategy increases risks for losses by Finnish and other taxpayers.”
On Tuesday 3 May, the European Commission repeated its official line that Finland will sign up to the eurozone decision to provide Portugal with financial aid. A decision is expected to be made at the Eurogroup meeting on 16 May, explained a spokesperson for EU Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia.
Now the third biggest political party in Finland, after winning 19% of the vote in the April general elections, the True Finns eurosceptics are firmly established on the political landscape. They will need to adjust their views in order to form part of the government and Soini is reported to have made hints about this. If they stick to their guns on the grounds of keeping to promises made during the elections campaign, then True Finns will not be able to join the coalition government. At the moment, four political parties in Finland support the idea of providing financial aid to Portugal, but they only account for 98 of the 200 seats in the Finnish parliament, which has to give its backing for any bailout of Portugal. The social democratic party, which came second in the April elections with 19.1% of the vote, voted against the bailouts of Ireland and Greece because the banks were not required to bear enough of the costs, but it argues all the same that the Finnish parliament's decision must be respected. (M.B./transl.fl)