True Finns’ chairman Timo Soini does not believe Finland will ever be paid back its loan to Greece

“Finland is being ushered towards the United States of Europe”

Timo Soini

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The chairman of the right-wing populist True Finns Party Timo Soini is of the opinion that the entire Southern Europe should be detached from the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union. Soini, who appeared as a guest on the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE’s Ykkösaamu current affairs programme on TV1 on Saturday, does not believe that Finland will ever get back the sum that it is lending to Greece.
      “Our leaders are misleading us on purpose. I do not think that Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen (National Coalition Party) and Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party) earnestly believe that Finland will ever get the entire EUR 1.6 billion support package back”, Soini declared.
      In Soini’s opinion the Social Democratic Party’s negative attitude towards the loan was simply a political move.
      “Had the SDP been in the government it would have supported the loan with the rest of them.”
     
Soini described the suggestion that the EU countries’ budgets be subjected to preliminary inspection by the EU Commission as “outrageous”.
      In his view the current economic crisis is ruthlessly being used to lobby for the developing of the European Union into a union of federal states.
      According to Soini, the National Coalition Party, the Centre Party, and the Social Democratic Party all support the notion of turning the EU into a federal union. The same concerns were voiced last week by the Left Alliance chairperson Annika Lapintie.
      In Soini’s view the EU has two roads to choose from: one leads to the United States of Europe and the other to a looser economic and free trade association. Soini himself supports the latter.
     
The aim of the True Finns chairman is to raise the party in the next Parliamentary election into the ranks of the middleweight parties along with the Green League and the Left Alliance.
      Governmental responsibilities are also of interest to the party, Soini said.
      Soini’s personal aim is to get elected to Parliament from the Uusimaa constituency, preferably with a five-digit number of votes. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2009 with the highest personal share of the votes, more than 130,000 nationwide, becoming the True Finns' first-ever MEP.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Parliament passes loan to Greece after acrimonious debate (14.5.2010)

See also:
  True Finns and Greens advance in European Parliament elections as big parties suffer (8.6.2009)
  Greek bailout sparks criticism in Finland (3.5.2010)

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