The organisation will be called Suomen Perusta, or roughly “the basis of Finland” or “Finland’s foundation”.
The body’s executive director, Simo Grönroos, told Yle’s Swedish-language news on Thursday that its first task in the new year will be to study the costs of immigration.
Grönroos, 29, was just elected to the Espoo City Council. He recently earned a master’s degree in history from the University of Helsinki and serves as secretary general of the Finns Party’s youth organisation.
Grönroos is also a member of the nationalist, immigration-sceptical groups Suomen Sisu and Homma. The new body’s board of directors includes MP Jussi Halla-aho, another former Helsinki University academic who has also been active in these groups. Grönroos told Yle he does not plan to leave the organisations.
50,000-euro budget
The think-tank’s board chair, MP Reijo Tossavainen, told the right-leaning online newspaper Uusi Suomi that Suomen Perusta was legally registered as a foundation in late October. He said he had suggested the idea a couple of years ago.
He said its first major research project would be studying the effects of the European debt crisis on Finland, and the nation’s alternatives regarding the crisis. Tossavainen said the actual research would be carried out by the Pellervo Economic Research (PTT), an independent body traditionally considered close to the Centre Party. He added that the report would be published in November.
The Finns Party has set aside 50,000 euros to establish the new institution.
Following the populist party’s stunning victory in Parliamentary elections in the spring of 2011, its slice of the state’s annual 36-million-euro pie of party subsidies shot up from 900,000 euros to seven million.