Increasing employment among the over 50-year-old population will be key to meeting the employment target of 75 per cent, says Martti Hetemäki, the most senior official at the Ministry of Finance. (Martti Kainulainen – Lehtikuva)

THE PREREQUISITES for meeting the government’s employment rate target of 75 per cent are still in place, insists Martti Hetemäki, the permanent state secretary at the Ministry of Finance.

A number of economists have reiterated their reservations about the attainability of the employment target in the aftermath of the first budget session of the government of Prime Minister Antti Rinne (SDP).

Prime Minister Antti Rinne (left) and French President Emmanuel Macron (right) greeted reporters at Élysée Palace in Paris on Wednesday, 18 September 2019. (Ludovic Marin – AFP/Lehtikuva)

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION has clarified that no deadline has been set for the withdrawal proposals of the United Kingdom.

Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne (SDP) stated in Paris, France, on Wednesday that the country will have to present written proposals for the conditions and implementation of the so-called Irish backstop by the end of the month, drawing attention all across the European Union.

Veikkaus had to reduce the number of its slot machines in public places by 3000 after being criticised for its marketing. Lehtikuva

It’s often said that close neighbours mimic each other, and this is certainly the case for Sweden and Finland.

The two countries may be fierce rivals on the hockey rink or Eurovision stage, but they do have a similar approach to governance. After all, both Finland and Sweden have economies based on the Nordic Model, mixing capitalism with social welfare.

A migrant with a child is helped arriving on Lesbos, an island in the north-eastern parts of the Aegean Sea in Greece, on 16 September 2019. (Aris Messinis – AFP/Lehtikuva)

THE REFUGEE QUOTA will be increased by 100 to 850 in Finland.

The Finnish government announced its decision to raise the quota for next year in the wake of its newly concluded budget session, revealing that it will accept 400 Syrian refugees from Lebanon and Turkey, 200 Congolese refugees from Zambia and 130 refugees from Niger.

Farmers scraped peat on a bog in Seinäjoki on 29 August 2019. (Anni Reenpää – Lehtikuva)

ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERTS have expressed their disappointment with the climate actions laid out in the first supplementary budget of the government of Prime Minister Antti Rinne (SDP).

Marita Laukkanen, a senior researcher at VATT Institute for Economic Research, told YLE on Wednesday that the first measures agreed on by the government represent only a minuscule step towards achieving its carbon neutrality goal by 2035.

The Finnish government is reducing the net earnings and purchasing power of wage earners, says Teemu Lehtinen, the CEO at the Taxpayers’ Association of Finland (TAF). (Vesa Moilanen – Lehtikuva)

THE TAX RATE of middle-income earners will creep up by 0.4 percentage points during the course of next year, according to the Taxpayers’ Association of Finland (TAF).

Its estimate takes into account the effects of both the competitiveness pact introduced by the previous government and the tax policy decisions made in the newly concluded budget session of the government of Prime Minister Antti Rinne (SDP).

Members of the Finnish government talked to the media after wrapping up their first budget session in Helsinki on Tuesday, 17 September 2019. (Jussi Nukari – Lehtikuva)

THE GOVERNMENT of Prime Minister Antti Rinne (SDP) has expressed its commitment to utilising immigration to improve the employment rate in Finland.

The government announced yesterday it will reduce the processing time for work permit applications to one month and move work permit-related issues from the purview of the Ministry of the Interior to that of the Ministry of Employment and the Economy.

Prime Minister Antti Rinne (left) and Minister of Finance Mika Lintilä (right) getting ready to hold a press conference after the government’s budget session in Helsinki on Tuesday, 17 September 2019. (Jussi Nukari – Lehtikuva)

THE FINNISH GOVERNMENT will dish out over 230 million euros to enable municipalities to adjust to the loss of tax revenue arising from the amendments introduced to the prepayment act.

Prime Minister Antti Rinne (SDP) estimated yesterday evening after the government had wrapped up its budget session that municipalities are between a rock and a hard place due to the uncertainty surrounding their tax revenues.

Finnish exports are forecast to increase by 3.8 per cent in 2019 but only by 1.3 per cent in 2020. (Vesa Moilanen – Lehtikuva)

THE RESEARCH INSTITUTE of the Finnish Economy (Etla) has downgraded its growth outlook for Finland for 2019–2020.

Etla on Monday revealed that it expects the country’s gross domestic product to grow by no more than 1.1 per cent this year and by 0.9 per cent in 2020 due to the slowdown of both the eurozone and the world economy.

Prime Minister Antti Rinne’s (SDP) government has committed to abolishing the industrial energy tax rebate scheme and lowering industrial energy tax rates closer to the minimum allowed by the EU. (Markku Ulander – Lehtikuva)

THE FINNISH GOVERNMENT has reportedly reached a tentative agreement on the details of its plan to slash 100 million euros’ worth of business subsidies.

YLE on Sunday revealed that the tentative agreement would see the cuts implemented not across the board but with an emphasis on certain subsidies. The government has previously stated that the cuts will be targeted at subsidies with a detrimental impact on the environment.