YLE had learned from sources within the negotiations that the Green League had threatened to walk out of talks at the House of the Estates unless a consensus was reached on electoral reform. Katainen dismissed the idea that anyone has threatened to walk out.
”Of course there has sometimes been a tense atmosphere,” he said at an early-evening press conference at the House of the Estates.
YLE had learned that the Greens had set approval of a new Election Act as a threshold question. Reform legislation drawn up under outgoing Justice Minister Tuija Brax of the Greens was approved by the last Parliament, but must be re-approved by the new legislature. The Social Democrats, now the second-largest bloc in Parliament, have adamantly rejected the revised act.
Talks on assembling a new cabinet are widely expected to drag on into next week.
“Work is proceeding at different rates in the various working groups,” said the prime minister-elect, adding that “in some areas we have already got quite far.”