Parliament’s question hour on Thursday was dominated by heated debate over bog-protection, with the current and previous Environment Ministers at loggerheads. The debate centred on whether land could be expropriated for bog-protection, as specified in proposed legislation. Earlier in the week Minister Grahn-Laasonen astounded environmentalists by announcing that she had frozen the legislation for the protection of peat bogs.
Outraged former Environment Minister, Green MP Ville Niinistö accused his successor of creating a false-impression that the legislation resorted to threatening landowners with expropriation, and implied that her actions were endangering bog ecosystems.
Minister Grahn-Laasonen retorted that the aims of bog-protection could be achieved through discussion with landowners as opposed to threats.
Government parties clash
The dispute was not confined to Niinistö and Grahn-Laasonen. Even the main government parties disagreed over freezing the legislation, which had been in the works for a long while. Prime Minister Alexander Stubb from the National Coalition Party said this was just a case of reassessing the protection programme, while SDP chair, Finance Minister Antti Rinne announced such re-appraisal is unnecessary.
“We do not need any reassessment here, as it is clearly written in the government programme that the bog-protection programme will move forward,” Rinne said, continuing: “Our view is that the bog-protection programme should be implemented according to the government programme.”
Even within the National Coalition Party, views differed on Grahn-Laasonen’s rejection of expropriation.
“If for example there is a very valuable bog, with for example ten owners, two of which say they will not agree [to expropriation], then there must be some different ways to proceed,” noted National Coalition Party MP Pertti Salolainen.
According to Minister Grahn-Laasonen, an investigation into bog-protection on a voluntary basis will be completed by the end of November.