In breaking news this Tuesday tabloid Ilta-Sanomat reports that two new celebrity businessmen – TV personality Jethro Rostedt and restauranteur Sedu Koskinen – have joined the ranks of the new Liike Nyt political organisation.
The market liberal movement was founded by seven people including ex-NCP MP Harry Harkimo in the spring. Liike Nyt ("movement now") espouses the belief that Finnish politics needs a shake-up, a sentiment shared by both the new celeb members.
"When Harkimo talked to me about the movement and asked me to join, I became convinced that things need to change, especially in politics," IS quotes Rostedt, who has been a city council member for the National Coalition Party since last year.
Rostedt says there is "nothing wrong" with the NCP, but that people – including himself – are disinterested in traditional politics.
Harkimo announced the news via an Instagram post featuring himself, Koskinen and Rostedt sporting enthusiastic thumbs-up poses.
Government rush endangers initiatives
In the autumn run-up to the spring 2019 parliamentary elections, government may be too strapped for time to properly handle the citizens' initiatives currently awaiting Parliament's attention.
Regional daily Aamulehti writes that among those initiatives currently in limbo are a recent one against female genital mutilation, one calling for the cancellation of the so-called activation model for unemployment and another to abolish additional parachute pensions for retiring MPs. All initiatives have the required 50,000 signatures or more for them to be eligible for parliamentary consideration.
The problem is that the initiatives may simply lapse on their own if Parliament does not address them by the end of its term. The next elections are in April 2019.
Left Alliance MP Aino-Kaisa Pekonen is also on the Social Affairs and Health Committee, and says in AL that there is a real worry over the future of the citizen-driven motions.
"I consider this a problem for democracy. Tens of thousands of people are waiting for a reply to the concerns they have voiced," she says.
The law states that an outgoing government may not leave piles of unfinished work for the next term to sort out. Citizens' initiatives are different, though, as they are not tied to government acts but are independent motions.
"When citizens' initiatives were brought on board, the constitution was changed to allow them," says Parliament's deputy secretary general Timo Tuovinen in the paper. "Those changes did not include any provisions for the policy that unfinished business should be abandoned at end of term."
Pekonen says outright that the constitution should now be altered to allow for citizens' initiatives to remain active despite a change of Parliament.
English outpaces Finnish in academia
English has become the language of science in Finland, announces top circulation daily Helsingin Sanomat.
More research papers and doctoral theses are published in English than in Finnish, and teaching also occurs more often than before in English. One organisation is worried that this might lead to current research slipping past the Finnish public.
"English research is generally more highly valued in universities, in funding as well as comparative review," says director Johanna Moisio of the Finnish Union of University Researchers and Teachers. "Turning English papers into applicable Finnish know-how for society at large takes quite a bit of work."
The international angle to higher education is a priority in the government programme, HS reminds its readers, and many academic employees say the growing status of English is mainly a positive factor for the quality of university teaching and research.
Finnish terminology does lag behind in some cutting-edge industries, and language issues may incur more work for many professors. Birgitta Vuorinen from the Ministry of Education is not worried, however.
"The Finnish language has so much legislation backing up its position in education and society that I think we needn't actually fret over its position falling away."