Finland's government parties on Wednesday agreed a budget deal in the second week of talks on spending plans for the next two years, after protracted negotiations that saw the government close to collapse at various points as the centre-right Centre Party struggled to reconcile with its centre-left partners in the five-party governing coalition.
"We have reached an agreement with all the chairs of the government parties on the central questions," said Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP) outside her official residence, Kesäranta just after midday.
"We have all moved closer to each other, everyone has compromised and the will was there [to reach a deal]."
Centre leader Annika Saarikko, who had been the focus of much of the drama over the previous seven days, said the deal was not perfect but it was a step in the right direction.
Details were expected to be further thrashed out on Wednesday afternoon.
Centre Party MPs voted to continue talks
On Wednesday morning Centre Party MPs had voted to continue negotiations rather than pulling out after a 9am meeting called to discuss progress in the talks.
In practice, the alternative course would have been to resign from the government and prompt a full-blown government crisis.
"Our view is that the pieces are starting to slot into place," said Centre Party leader Saarikko as she left the meeting with MPs.
The budget discussions are normally scheduled to last for two days but on this occasion dragged on over a week as the parties wrestled with ideological and political differences.
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Talks had ended on Tuesday evening without agreement. All leaders except Saarikko had slipped out of the back door of the House of the Estates in the Kruununhaka district of central Helsinki rather than commenting to journalists camped out at the front of the building.
Many of the assembled media had been running live streams of the locked doors for the duration of the negotiations.
At issue was support for the peat industry and budget deficits in 2022 and 2023, which the Centre wanted to eliminate but other parties were happy to cover with debt.
Deeper ideological differences have also been exposed during the talks, with the Centre Party wanting a display of fiscal prudence.
"It's important to the Centre Party's MPs that the Finnish economy is managed in a responsible fashion," said the party's parliamentary group chair Antti Kurvinen after the meeting of his MPs. "Finland should continue to be a country that pays its debts."
The five leaders of the government parties were scheduled to meet at the Prime Minister's official residence Kesäranta on Wednesday afternoon.