Kai Mykkänen (NCP), the Minister of the Interior, has faced criticism for his decision to re-locate the Crisis Management Centre Finland (CMC) from Kuopio to Helsinki.
Minister of the Interior Kai Mykkänen (NCP) has come under criticism for his decision to re-locate the Crisis Management Centre Finland (CMC) from Kuopio to Helsinki.
Anu Vehviläinen (Centre), the Minister of Local Government and Public Reforms, on Thursday acknowledged that the issue falls solely within the purview of Mykkänen but accused her fellow cabinet member of making the decision irregardless of the views of the Centre Party.
“Minister Mykkänen was well aware of opposition from the ministerial group of the Centre. Also I met him one-on-one to discuss the issue. There is no way it was unclear to him how the Centre feels about the re-location project,” she wrote in a statement published on the website of the Centre Party.
“The Centre’s ministers would have voted against the proposal in a government meeting,” she added.
Kuopio, she argued, has been put into an unreasonable situation by the re-locations of both CMC and the Finnish Medicines Agency (Fimea). The Finnish government last year reversed its earlier decision to centralise the operations of Fimea in Kuopio by ruling that the agency would continue to operate also in Helsinki, Turku and Oulu.
“These kind of back and forth decisions will eat away at the credibility of decision making and politics in general,” bemoaned Vehviläinen.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT Photo: Roni Rekomaa – Lehtikuva Source: Uusi Suomi
