Chairman of the Centre Party Juha Sipilä says Finland shouldn’t offer Greece any debt relief. At the same time he acknowledged that the country faces difficult times meeting its loan repayment commitments.
Speaking during Yle’s Centre Party Day as part of a series focusing on political parties and their candidates in the prelude to the European Parliament elections, Centre Party chair Juha Sipilä said that Finland shouldn’t offer Greece any relief from the debt it owes.
However he said that Greece would likely not manage to repay all of its debt and is likely to face interest or repayment period restructuring.
“Greece has relatively high debt. It is three times the size of Finland’s debt,” Sipilä said in the Friday night discussion.
The party chief said that any possible further assistance to the struggling economy would have to be considered on the basis of the country’s current circumstances.
“Each situation would have to be weighed separately. As a financier I understand this. However I am extremely critical of the entire bailout package,” Sipilä said referring to the series of billion-euro rescue loans provided by eurozone members like Finland to help buttress the flagging and debt-laden Greek economy.
According to Sipilä while Greece seems to be getting back on its feet, Finland may be facing very hard times.
“Here in Finland we’ve been caught with our pants down. We have demanded fiscal discipline from others but now we ourselves aren’t following the rule book. This is the big task facing us,” he stated.
He added that Finland doesn’t need to consider exiting the common-currency eurozone for the moment, but cautioned that it should prepare for the breakup of the bloc.
“Resisting sanctions is not endorsement of Russia’s actions”
The party leader took the opportunity to reject claims that his opposition to sanctions against Russia for its role in the Ukrainian crisis implied his endorsement of Russia’s actions.
“Finland shouldn’t support the EU policy, but should try to influence it to ensure that we don’t fall into the downward spiral of a sanctions war. And that won’t happen if the EU actively pursues dialogue. At the moment actually, the EU’s most important mission is to ensure a solution,” Sipilä said.
He added that Finland would end up holding the wrong end of the sanctions stick, since Russia accounts for some ten percent of Finnish exports.
End of agricultural subsidies a mistake
The Centre chair also weighed in on Finland’s decision to exit an agricultural subsidy programme, calling it a mistake. Article 141 of Finland’s accession to the European Union guarantees farmers in the south domestic agricultural support, giving the programme its name.
“This 141 support is an important part of the accession treaty for farmers in southern Finland. Its replacement will effectively end by 2020. That would be a setback for Finnish farmers,” Sipilä noted.
On Friday Centre Party Europarliament candidate Olli Rehn also commented that Finland had made a mistake in giving up the subsidy. For his part Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen had defended the government’s decision, saying that giving it up frees Finland from continuous negotiations with an unenthusiastic European Commission.
