Finland’s Employment Minister Jari Lindström has announced his decision to run for European Parliament.
As reported by YLE in Finland, Lindström is also planning to run in this spring’s domestic parliamentary election. This will be the first election for the relatively new conservative Blue Reform party, which has profiled itself as being sceptical on issues surrounding immigration. The party has said that it wants to work towards increasing resources for police and how such funding would be best distributed.
Another issue the party is backing is to ensure that people’s first payment default notices are erased after the debt is fully paid.
“I am certain that we will create a parliamentary group,” said Blue Reform’s party chair, Minister for European Affairs, Culture and Sports Sampo Terho. “It is realistic to think that we will be as big as the Swedish People’s Party or the Christian Democrats.”
While the Blue Reform, part of PM Juha Sipilä‘s tripartite centre-right government, was established by around 20 former Finns Party (an anti-immigration party) members who broke off in 2017, the party has not received much support from the public.
According to Yle’s most recent political party support survey, the Blue Reform had the support of 1.5% of voters.
