Soini owns up to joining Libertas

At least one safe member for Libertas.

Battered Declan Ganley and Libertas can take heart after relatively good news from Finland. Asked by the daily Helsingin Sanomat, Timo Soini, MP and Chairman of the True Finns (Perussuomalaiset), owns up to joining the (potentially) pan-European political party Libertas.

Chairman Soini stresses that he has joined in a personal capacity and that the True Finns are not engaged as a party.

Libertas may need some good news. First the Estonian MP Igor Gräzin announced that he was not a member, bringing Libertas down from the number of elected officials in seven member states needed for status and funding as a political party at European level, or Europarty.

Gräzin was then followed by Bulgarian MP Mincho Hristov Kuminev, who has denied signing on for Libertas, as reported by EurActiv.


Ralf Grahn

Julien Frisch reads Helsingin Sanomat

Julien Frisch has written several blog posts about preparations ahead of the European elections due in June 2009:

http://julienfrisch.blogspot.com/

Perhaps Julien is not a regular reader of the biggest Finnish daily, Helsingin Sanomat, but after this post I guess that he is at least going to take a peek at its International edition.

Helsingin Sanomat, International edition: Parties seeking money and candidates for European election:

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/-/1135240828394


Ralf Grahn

Alex Stubb: From MEP to Foreign Minister

When Ilkka Kanerva was forced to quit as Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland, the (Conservative) Coalition Party quickly called in a representative of a younger generation, Alexander Stubb, who is known as an active member of the EPP group in the European Parliament.

Annamari Sipilä, who works as Brussels correspondent for the biggest Finnish daily newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, has written a profile of Stubb, officially to take office on Friday.

The story can be found in Helsingin Sanomat’s International Edition under the heading ‘Profile: Alex Stubb is too smart to make trouble’ (Updated 2 April 2008):

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/-/1135235241884

Stubb’s rapid career and thorough grounding – both practical and academic – in European Union politics may be of interest to a wider readership outside Finland.


Ralf Grahn