Finland Country Profile

Political Profile

Finland is a parliamentary democracy with a multi-party political system. The head of state is the President, and the head of government is the Prime Minister. The Finnish government has three branches: the executive, judicial, and legislative. The executive power is divided between the President and Prime Minister. The President has veto power over parliamentary decisions, but the veto can be overruled by a majority vote in parliament. The president also leads the nation’s foreign policy and is the supreme commander of the Finnish defense force. The Prime Minister leads the nation’s executive branch, called the Finnish government. The Judiciary is independent under the constitution and in practice. Legislative power is vested in the Parliament of Finland and the Government has limited rights to extend or amend legislation. The
major factions of the Finnish government are the Social Democratic Party, National Coalition party (moderate conservative) and the Finns party. Legislation is enacted, passed and ratified in parliament, a majority vote is needed to pass new legislation. The courts of law in Finland are composed of the supreme court, 6 courts of appeal and 27 District courts. The courts of Appa and District courts are presided over by professional judges, these courts also hear civil and criminal cases. The supreme court is presided over by only professional justices.

Major players in current Finnish politics:

Prime Minister: Sanna Mirella Marin
President: Sauli Niinisto

Economy

The economy of Finland is a highly industrialized, mixed economy with a per capita output. Business freedom, monetary freedom, and trade freedom are strong, but government spending is excessive. Finland is ranked 6th among 45 countries in the Europe region, and its overall score is above the regional and world averages. Property rights are protected by one of the world’s strongest enforcement regimes. Finland adheres to many international agreements that are intended to protect intellectual property. The top individual income tax rate is 31.3 percent, and the top corporate tax rate is 20 percent. Government spending has amounted to 54.6 percent of total output (GDP) over the past three years, and budget deficits have averaged 2.2 percent of GDP. Public debt is equivalent to 67.1 percent of GDP. Not all trades in Finland require a license; some require only notification or registration with the authorities. Labor laws are rigid and excessive. The aging of the population and the shrinking working- age demographic threaten future economic growth. As a member of the EU, Finland has 46 preferential
trade agreements in force. In general, government policies do not interfere significantly with foreign investment. The largest sector of Finland’s economy is services at 72.7 percent, followed by manufacturing and refining at 31.4 percent. The largest major industries in Finland include electronics, motor industry, chemical industry, forest industry, energy, and metal mining industry. Concerning trade, Finland’s largest exports include transportation, electronics, forestry, machinery, and chemicals. The main import sectors are food, petroleum, chemicals, transport equipment, iron and steel, machinery, and textile yarn.

National Security

Finland joined NATO in 1995. It gains most of its security from being a part of NATO. Finland has a very small standing army. There are only 18,000 people in the army, which is small compared to the 5.542 million people in the country. Because of this, Finland cannot lend much manpower to a situation like Afghanistan, but we can lend some money support. Finland has a wartime military size of 280,000 and active size of 18,000. We have 700 howitzers, 700 heavy mortars and 100 rocket launchers. Finland spends a total of 5.8 billion dollars a year on
national security. Despite Finland’s small military size, we enjoy its geographical region. Finland is surrounded by mountains and many neighboring allies. Finland has actively donated 30 millions euros per year to the rebuilding of the nation of Afghanistan. Finland will continue to donate this money to the region until the country of Afghanistan is rebuilt and stabilized. Finland has enjoyed allies and partnerships with Germany, The United States and the United Kingdom. These countries are some of our largest allies. Finland has kept these alliances healthy by increasing trade with these countries. Cyber security is one of Finland’s biggest threats. Finland believes that attacks on the web grow every day. Cyber attacks not only affect business and people on personal levels, but they affect society as a whole. Finland is dedicated to growing its cyber security aspects. Finland does not have much manpower or even money to donate to the situation in Afghanistan or other world conflicts. However we as a nation we are ranked #11 in the world for best cyber security. We can offer cyber security to military operations and our allies. We can also add cyber security to the country of Afghanistan. We can help our allies in many
different ways despite having little military strength. We can accept refugees and offer educational systems to the country of Afghanistan.

Role in UN

The country has been very active in every field of the organization: peace and security, economic and social development, human rights, international law, and so forth. On the other hand, it is evident that in every field Finland has set some priorities in accordance with its own
values and capabilities and thus focused its attention and resources on some specific issues or forms of action. Thus, when it comes to peace and security issues, for instance, Finland has contributed to peacekeeping and disarmament, paying special attention, in terms of the latter, to nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, chemical weapons, and the arms trade. Finland has served the international community twice in the Security Council: in 1969-70 and 1989-90. Finland has worked intensively for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and consistently stressed the role of women and the role of education in development. Finland was for a long time a net recipient of development assistance as it received aid from UNICEF and favorable loans from the World Bank. Against this historical background, Finland’s readiness to commit itself and to achieve the UN development goals is understandable, although it is still lagging behind. Finland has a negative stance towards all forms of force, war and violence from the individual level to the international system. Finland has stated its negative stance in the UN towards war, terrorism, kidnappings, military coups, torture and the death penalty. Only the use of force for national defense and by the UN, in accordance with the UN Charter, is excluded from this comprehensive negative stand.

Climate Change Mitigation

Finland is widely recognized for its policies on climate change mitigation. In 2015 we passed the Climate Change Act which will reduce greenhouse emissions by 80% by 2050. The Climate Change Plan established in 2022, plans to cut emissions from the effort-sharing sector in half by 2030 and then achieve carbon neutrality by 2035. The hope is that soon after 2035 Finland will be carbon negative. Some ways we are working on this are by building charging stations for electric cars, helping people transition from gas cars to electric cars, helping companies financially as they work on transitioning from oil heating to more renewable resources, and helping the agriculture business reduce emissions. The major areas we are focusing on with our Medium-Term Climate Change Policy are building heating and cooling, agriculture, transport, and waste management. Emissions from transport will be reduced as we continue on the Roadmap for Fossil-Free Transport. This provides support and incentives as people transition from fossil fuels to electricity and biofuels. It will improve how energy efficient the transport system is. Emissions from heating and cooling buildings will be mitigated by slowly getting rid of oil and gas heating and using low-carbon options for heating and cooling. This will be supported by subsidies and tax credit.