Jussi Halla-aho of the Finns Party and Sanna Marin of the Social Democrats faced off in an election debate hosted by MTV on 8 December 2020. (Handout / Onni Ojala – MTV Oy)

A POLL by Helsingin Sanomat reveals the Finns Party has widened its advantage over the Social Democratic Party.

Popular support for the opposition party, the poll found, has crept up by 0.1 points to 21.6 per cent, while that for the largest of the five ruling parties has fallen by 0.8 points to 19.7 per cent – the first sub-20-per-cent reading since March 2020.

Road safety among young motorists has prompted lawmakers to consider amending the act on driving licences, reports YLE. (Antti Aimo-Koivisto – Lehtikuva)

THE DRIVING LICENCE ACT may receive its first set of amendments only a few years after its implementation, reports YLE.

The act was overhauled thoroughly less than three years ago to shift the emphasis away from mandatory driving education toward the driving competence assessment and, as a result, reduce the cost of the licence.

Member of Parliament Ano Turtiainen was photographed during a plenary session in the Finnish Parliament in Helsinki on 9 April 2021. (Emmi Korhonen – Lehtikuva)

ANO TURTIAINEN, a first-term Member of Parliament from South-east Finland, has recently sparked controversy with two questionable social media posts.

Turtiainen on Tuesday wrote on Facebook that he approaches police as he would his worst enemies of war and that he has lost his confidence in the police following a conditional fine issued to his company and police actions during an anti-restrictions protest held in Helsinki on Saturday.

Restaurants in Finland have set their sights to two weeks from now, when the government has promised to re-examine the need for restrictions, writes YLE. (Vesa Moilanen – Lehtikuva)

RESTAURANTS will be allowed to re-open their doors to eat-in customers after a six-week shutdown in large parts of Finland on Monday.

YLE on Thursday reported that the Finnish Parliament has approved a series of amendments to the act on communicable diseases to enable legislators to impose strict conditions on the re-openings linked to, for example, opening and serving hours.

Sari Ekholm of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health reacted at a press conference on the Covid-19 vaccine of AstraZeneca in Helsinki on Wednesday, 14 April 2021. (Heikki Saukkomaa – Lehtikuva)

THE FINNISH INSTITUTE for Health and Welfare (THL) is continuing to recommend that only over 65-year-olds be vaccinated against the coronavirus with the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca, writes YLE.

Mia Kontio, a leading expert at THL, stated yesterday in a press conference that the vaccine has caused three cases of extremely rare blood clots, including a fatal one, in Finland.

The Finnish government will sit down this evening at the House of the Estates in Helsinki. (Heikki Saukkomaa – Lehtikuva)

THE FINNISH GOVERNMENT is unlikely to augment its toolkit for combating the coronavirus epidemic with new measures for the eventuality that the epidemiological situation takes a turn for the worse in May or June, reports Helsingin Sanomat.

The government said after its proposal for movement restrictions was shot down it will weigh up the need for alternative measures if the epidemiological situation worsens significantly.

Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services Krista Kiuru (SDP) arriving for a government meeting at the House of the Estates in Helsinki on Wednesday, 14 April 2021. (Markku Ulander – Lehtikuva)

MINISTER of Family Affairs and Social Services Krista Kiuru (SDP) on Thursday revealed in the Finnish Parliament that Finland is set to initiate negotiations with Russia on acquiring doses of Sputnik V, a Russian-developed viral-vector vaccine against Covid-19.

She pointed out that the negotiations would not be in violation of the joint purchase agreements of the EU, as the 27-country bloc has yet to make an agreement with the producer of Sputnik V.

Piled-up chairs outside a restaurant on Vaasankatu in Helsinki on 9 April 2021. (Emmi Korhonen – Lehtikuva)

THE PARLIAMENT of Finland will today determine the conditions on which restaurants will be allowed to re-open after the six-week shutdown instituted in regions in the acceleration or community transmission phase of the coronavirus epidemic.

The shutdown is ending on Monday, 19 April.

Minister of Finance Matti Vanhanen (Centre) was photographed arriving for a government meeting at the House of the Estates in Helsinki on 7 April 2021. (Heikki Saukkomaa – Lehtikuva)

THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE on Tuesday said Finland will delay presenting its recovery and resilience plan to the European Union until 15 May.

All EU member states are required to submit their plans to be eligible for funding disbursed under the 672-billion-euro Recovery and Resilience Facility of the EU. Finland was originally scheduled to present its plan on 30 April.

Commuters pass the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, on April 15, 2021. LEHTIKUVA / AFP

The Biden administration on Thursday announced economic sanctions on Russia over cyberspying and election meddling. Simon Miles, an assistant professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University and an expert on Russia and the former Soviet Union, is available to comment.

Long queues have formed outside the Malmi service point of the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) as customers are compelled to wait in line for over eight hours a day, reports Iltalehti. 

Migri’s Helsinki service point was shifted from Käenkuja to Malmi last week. Customers were unable to make an appointment or use the queue number service for two weeks during the move.

According to a report by Helsingin Sanomat, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is proposing that employees should be able to access information regarding their coworker’s salaries if they suspect gender-based discrimination. 

In such a case, the employer would be unable to refuse the request to provide salary details by law. The proposal has allegedly been submitted to a tripartite working group that promotes pay transparency and equality in the workplace (tripartite negotiations often play a key role in settling labour disputes in Finland). 

Slot machines at a Lidl store in the Kamppi shopping centre/Lehtikuva

Lidl has announced that it will remove the slot machines operated by state-owned gambling agency Veikkaus Oy from all its stores in Finland, becoming the first nationwide retail chain in the country to do so.

The German supermarket chain currently hosts 250 slot machines in stores across Finland. The removal of the machines, which is scheduled for this Summer, would result in the company losing out on millions of euros in commissions. 

(Photo by Marcel Kusch / dpa / AFP) / - LEHTIKUVA / AFP

Ryanair today (14 Apr) noted the EU General Court's rulings on Finnish, Danish and Swedish State aid favouring Finnair and SAS over all other EU airlines. The Finnish government granted a €600m loan guarantee to Finnair which has benefited from more than €1.2bn in State aid since the beginning of the pandemic. The Danish and Swedish governments each granted a loan guarantee of €137m to SAS which has also benefited from recapitalisation State aid from these countries,

A person received a jab of the vaccine by AstraZeneca in Helsinki on 12 February 2021. (Markku Ulander – Lehtikuva)

HELSINKI may soon find itself with a surplus of the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca.

YLE on Monday reported that the Finnish capital received a shipment of 16,000 doses of the vaccine a week ago and expects to take delivery of another 16,000 doses two to three weeks from today. Meanwhile, the number of over 65-year-old people yet to be vaccinated stands at roughly 26,000, according to Timo Luukkarinen, a medical director at the City of Helsinki.