Finland's Grand Committee on Greece

Finland's Grand Committee had a meeting last Saturday about it's policy on Greece. Grand Committee is a compromise between having a two chambers or not. Grand Committee usually has members from all of the parties represented in the Eduskunta (Parliament), and it's foremost duties include issues concerning European Union, and law proposals that has been passed to a second round for amendments.

In case somebody is wondering how the Parliament felt about the Greece's situation you might be interested in these minutes. I could not find them in English so I have taken this opportunity to translate the minutes. Everything inside brackets are my own comments to give background information and it might not be completely unbiased. I'm solely responsible if something is lost in the translation or if the translation is inaccurate on any accounts. Also, keep in mind that politician's don't always speak the language that you would hear in a pub. Viewer discretion is highly recommended due to these limitations.

***

"Item 3 - Eurogroup 11.7.2015

Meetings of European Council and European Union's councils
EUN 41/2015 vp [link is broken or unpublished]

Preparation

Following were heard by the Committee:
- Minister [of Finance] Alexander Stubb

Assisted by Secretary of the State Olli-Pekka Heinonen, Secretary of the State Martti Hetemäki, Ministerial Adviser Minna Aaltonen, Financial Secretary Jouni Lehto [from] the Ministry of Finance.

Follow-up Letter EJ 14/2015 vp (E 137/2014 vp) has been received by Eduskunta [the parliament]. The Minister Stubb and the Secretary of the State Heinonen outlined Finland's Policy [so far].

The floor was given to MPs Tuppurainen, Arhinmäki, Elo, Biaudet, Jalonen, Essayah, Haavisto, Harakka, Mykkänen, Kalmari and Vice Chairman Pekkarinen. Minister Stubb, and Secretaries of the State Heinonen and Hetemäki, and the Secretary of Finances Lehto then answered to queries.

The Grand Committee pointed out that the item in hand involving the contents of the Follow-up Letter EJ 14/2015 vp (E 137/2014 vp), the position of the Government, and the discussion made in the [Grand] Committee is a matter of discretion on the grounds of the Constitution § 50 subsection 3 to secure the negotiations. During the discussion the Chairman Virolainen made the following basic proposal as the position of the Grand Committee: Committee agrees with the Government's Policy.

The meeting was suspended at 16.34, and it was adjourned at 16.50.

MP [Johanna] Karimäki made the following proposal for the Grand Committee to approve as it's position supported by MP [Eva] Biaudet: 

"Finland's objective of negotiations should be to secure the stability, the unity and the future of the Eurozone. Greece has made a new request for a new loan program via ESM [European Stability Mechanism], experts have given their views of the Greece's reform proposals, and the Greeks have indicated through a referendum that they want a change.

The evalution given by the Institutions were presented to the Grand Committee only verbally. According to the statement the Government's position is against the recommendations of the Institutions. The Grand Committee acknowledges that the evaluation should have been trusted. The growing humanitarian crisis has to be stopped, people should be able to fulfil the requirements for living in the whole of European Union. It is in the core of the European values. The legitimacy of European Union is based on this.

Finland's overall liabilities should not necessarily be increased as there is still capital in ESM to cover Greece's third loan program. In the long run it should not be a threshold question should the capacity of the crisis solving mechanism be increased if the stability of the Eurozone requires it. Crisis solving mechanism to maintain the stability of the Eurozone has been proven to be a success. For example, Portugal and Cyprus have been able to get their economy on a more sustainable foundation due to the support program. 

For the last five years we have been solving the crisis by saving banks. According to experts 75 per cent of the benefits of the European Union and other creditors went to international banks. Most of the benefits went to Germany. In a normal market economy banks and the investors would have carried the risk. Cuts in the Greece have been substantial, and most of it is being paid by people who are already in the low income and unemployed. This does not remove the fact that Greece needs to do systematical reforms to expand the foundation of taxes and to tackle the grey economy, tax evasion and corruption. Also the reform of pension scheme should be continued so that the raise of the pension age would not only affect the now young generation. Greece's government should be able to decide what are the reforms that provide the best growth. 

Big part of the Greece's economical problems and the amount of the debt is derived from domestical problems. But also a very big part is derived from the financial crisis and the bank saving operation. This has to be acknowledged when we are thinking about the terms of a compromise. 

Uncontrollable exit of the Greece from Euro would lead to a long-term instability which could in the worst case expand to a European wide crisis. The objective should be to keep all the current Eurozone states in using common currency. In case the Greece exits the euro it would be probable that the Greece would not pay their debts. Also the risk of Finland losing all it's receivables is high. 

The terms and conditions of the crisis countries' support programs or loans should be able to be readjusted if the crisis countries implement healthy reforms for their economies and if the readjustment is to secure the well-being for the whole Eurozone and Finnish economy. Support programs are to be implemented in the matter that they support employment and growth. Principal is that the loans given out through the support mechanism will be paid back.

Greece's government needs room to choose their economical means to get by the crisis, but we also need to to see true commitment to necessary reforms. Syriza needs to be held responsible for credible accounting. In the mean time EU and Finland should be prepared to give humanitarian aid immediately if the whole economical system of Greece, and the availability of groceries and medicine collapses in the immediate following days.

[Grand] Committee expects that the negotiations are driven to find a compromise that secures Finland's and Europe's interests, secures our receivables, secures the stability of Eurozone, and is fair to Greece and to their ability to see growth as a part of the union of common currency. From this position Finland can agree that we will negotiate with Greece about the ESM program."

MP Karimäki's proposal lost the vote by 17-4, 4 abstained. 

MP Arhinmäki made the following proposal for the Grand Committee to approve as it's position:

"Finland is prepared for a solution that enables Greece's economy to grow, unemployment to go down, stop the growing of the humanitarian crisis and is ready in principle to start the negotiations for the ESM program. Also as proposed by the so called Institutions (Comission, ECB, IMF) the Greece's proposal will be the foundation of the negotiations for ESM program.

Objective is that Greece can also pay back it's debts. Sustainability of Greece's debts might require restructuring of the debts. 

Negotiations should include that Greece will make major reforms to tackle corruption, stop tax evasion and improve it's taxation. Also the pension scheme requires restructuring reforms."

Proposal was not put into a vote as it was unsupported.

MP [Tytti] Tuppurainen made the following proposal for the Grand Committee to approve as it's position supported by MP [Riitta] Myller: 

"Finland's government has been unable to acquire enough information and credible estimations of the situation in Greece to make decisions. Finland has to hold on to it's receivables negotiated through [our] liabilities."

MP Tuppurainen's proposal lost the vote by 17-8. 

[Grand] Committee approved the position of the Eduskunta: [Grand] Committee agrees with government's policy."

****

It is also notable that even though the Grand Committee is formally representing the Parliament all the amendments to the Grand Committee's basic proposal came from the members of the opposition parties.

Hopefully this translation shows that not all of the Finland, or it's Parliament, is in anyway supporting the unreasonable terms that the Greece is presented with.

Finnish police will start distributing malware in a year

As I wrote about this absurdity of confiscating 9-year old girl's Winnie The Pooh -laptop couple of months ago for piracy, my subtext was about that there is something seriously wrong in Finland. It seems, that even though Finland gets very good ratings for their educational system and the IT know-how is in a very good shape, the legislator seems to be unaware of the laws being written.

In 2014 new police law will be enforced in Finland. Legislator has thought it to be a good idea for police officials to start distributing malware.

When thinking of all the norty little things done in the cyberworld, it seems uncalled that officials starts to do something that, I believe without looking the statistics,  most internet users think as being malicious, unthoughtful and unfair. And again, I only believe that I speak on behalf of all the people of the internets, that starting the distribution of new software that gets installed in people's computer without user's knowledge, for the sole purpose of gathering intelligence reports of how the computer is being used.

Finnish legislator has only made it legal, now it is up to officials to figure out, what to make out of this law. Officials seem to be tempted of this new tool. "When legislator gives us a tool, of course we want to use it. Although it is not simple or cheap", Chief inspector Chief Timo Piiroinen told to Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish).

Independence day of Melancholia

It is another sad day in human history and it is also the independence day of Finland.

So gather around, you little pear cheeks, while a very disturbed person tells you about the miseries of life, history, death and everything.

One of The Sad Stories of the north is the tale of The Winter War (Talvisota). Finland and Soviet Union had some disputes with the borders and it suddenly escalated to war. Finnish casualties were great. More than 25 000 soldiers were left dead and more than 50 000 wounded, some for life. That's almost fifth of the army's strenght of  350 000.

It was also a sad ending for many young lads of the Soviet Union too. Soviet Union lost more than 100 000 men during that cold winter, and almost 200 000 of the Mother Russia's children were somehow wounded. That's about a third of almost a million soldiers.

So that page of history probably left some bitterness on both sides. War never changes, only the people who speak about it.

Bitter bard takes a little break now. Here's a clip of Studio Julmahuvi's art movie "Roudasta Roospuuttoon" (lenght 4:16), with English subtitles for those who like to talk and otherwise socialize all the time.


Frozen bard comes inside and continues the story, now enlightening the mystery of Finnish melancholia with some world known facts.

They say the wiser you are, the more worries you have; the more you know, the more it hurts. There are two depressing sides on that rusty coin. First of all, being the Lutherian state that Finland is, every quote is full of dark submission to the soon coming death of all life. Did I mention the suicide rates? No, I'll come back to that later. Anyways,  if one at least  takes seriously "the wiser...more it hurts"-statement (from Ecclesiastes), one understands the suffocating pain of knowing too much, cause Finns know it very too well. That's the other depressing side: Finland's literacy per cent is 100 %. That means every dark truth, that can be read and understood, can be done so by the Finns everywhere. Just listen to this love song.

 Him - Join me in death (best Finnish love song ever in circulation)

Maybe Finns are not the heaviest drinkers by European standards, being outshadowed by Czech and Irish. Latter being the low self esteem counterpart of Finns by it's own merits. You still have to remember that Finns drink it all at once and have a bigger suicide rating per capita than the early mentioned two beer states.

Here is Rich Lyons making few comments about it


And here's a quick version from Swedish poet (Anglo sax may refer to him as a comedian) Robert Gustafsson to those with shorter attention span (also with english subtitles).



How do Finns celebrate this day? Well, president throws a party to his closest friends, protegees, mentors and campaign benefactors using taxpayers money, and the rest of the country gathers around a television to watch that party live. It's covered by the national broadcasting company narrated with two languages (Finnish and Swedish). Before that there's a big military parade which still fails to one done in North Korea. Between those two spectacular shows, Finns watch war movies about the The Winter War.

There is some irony in that celebration; The 6th of December is also the St. Nicholas day.

9-year old girl prosecuted for Piratism in Finland

I know and I've heard of restrictions stated over children's computer use, but Finland's authorities may have set the new boundaries of how far can you go bullying children. Two of the major Finnish newspapers reported of a case where a child's computer was confiscated by the police, because of downloading a song from a locally well known musician called Chisu. Hufvudstadsbladet (biggest newspaper in Finland targeted for swedish speakers) tells that Electronic Frontier of Finland (Effi) and Pirate Party (Piraattipuolue) criticized   Finnish authorities for going to far.

Scandinavian's biggest Newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported also that the local Copyright Information and  Anti-Piracy Centre in Finland TTVK's director Antti Kotilainen answered the critics by saying "of course we review every situation individually, but that in this case, it was better to let authorities to investigate what has happened." According to Helsingin Sanomat, Antti Kotilainen stated that it is not possible to load illegal music without knowledge.

Events started when last year's october family's daughter tried to preview to Chisu's new album. According to child's father, searches took her to the Pirate bay. Next spring the father got a letter from TTVK demanding 600 euros. TTVK's letter also demanded a nondisclosure. Father didn't oblige, but instead, wrote a letter back to the attorney. Letter included photographs of the bought album, and the tickets to the concert, which her child attended.

This case has been the story of many Finnish newspapers today and also it has gotten a lot of attention through facebook. As the father's story started to circulate, it seems that the piracy movement gets a lot of sympathy because of this. At least after this, anti-piracy movement might be more attuned to use softer means to fight piracy for a while.

Unfortunately there are no links in English at the moment, so you have to trust author's translations, or use some translator device. You will probably get more using Swedish links, because Finnish doesn't really translate to English using automatic translators. If I find some links in English, concerning this case, I will try to remember to update this blog.

Update #1. Today there seems to be few english stories. Here are few links that might be enlightening.
Technocrunch: Finnish Police Seize 9-year Old Girl's Winnie the Pooh laptop for Using Pirate Bay
Torrentfreak: Police raid 9-year Old Pirate Bay Girl, Confiscate Winnie the Pooh Laptop
The Inquirer: Finnish Police Raid 9 Year Old Girl for 'piracy'

Update #2. In Finland people under fifteen cannot be prosecuted. So this blog entry starts by throwing people a bit off. Sorry for wooing people. Girl's legal guardian, in this case her father, might still face trial.

Update #3. According to Torrentfreak, TTVK's english abbreviation is CIAPC.

Update #4. Electronic Frontier Finland seems to have made an English release stating that CIAPC is doing blackmaling in Finland.

Update #5. Boingboing seems to have used this entry as a part of their story. I might have had a good upper hand covering this story, because I can read Finnish newspapers in two languages. So I'll just crosslink their story here.