Current events programme Ajankohtainen kakkonen reported that a top energy official at the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, Taisto Turunen, may have had a vested interest in seeing power company Fennovoima receive permission to build a reactor.
Turunen, the Director-General of the Energy Department, was also serving on the board of directors of Outokumpu when Outokumpu joined forces with E.On to form Fennovoima. Fennovoima then applied for a permit from the Ministry to build a nuclear reactor.
"I am not sure whether the presented facts, the founding of Fennovoima and the handling of the nuclear permit by the Ministry, are as simultaneous as they were reported," Minister of Economic Affairs Mauri Pekkarinen told YLE. "I feel it's important that we look into the matter today. We must make sure that there is absolutely no suspicion."
Turunen says there was no reason to recuse himself from the applications process. He says there was no reason for him not to be involved in analysing the country's energy needs.
On Thursday, the government will be making a formal decision on the pending nuclear construction applications by Fennovoima and TVO. But the Ministry already announced its intentions in April:
"The Government would make a positive decision-in-principle on the additional construction of nuclear power based on the applications submitted by Teollisuuden Voima Oyj and Fennovoima Oyj. The application by Fortum would be declined," announces a press release on the Ministry website.