One week after announcing his decision to abstain from voting on the EU’s Covid recovery plan, Chairman of the National Coalition Party Group Kai Mykkänen and a party chair Petteri Orpo announced on Thursday that the party had reversed its decision and allowed a free vote.
This means that a majority of coalition party representatives are expected to vote in favor of the package.
After reassessing the situation, party chairmen said the party would change its position to save the package.
Mykkänen and Orpo defended back and forth, explaining that as a result of the declared abstention, the party was able to get the complaints heard in the Parliamentary Finance Committee.
According to party leaders, there are still shortcomings in the stimulus package, saying that it is a step towards a common debt to finance the expenditure of poorer countries and a measure that will transfer significant decision-making power away from Finland. However, these controversies have been taken into account in the report of the Finance Committee, according to Mykkänen and Orpo.
This time, the party is not trying to put party discipline to the vote, which means the majority of the parliamentary group is expected to vote in favor of the stimulus package.
Some are expected to vote against it, and four votes have not already been announced.
The EU’s Covid recovery plan needs the support of two-thirds of Finnish MEPs to vote in parliament after the central committee considered that the constitutional consequences required a larger majority. The abstention of the National Contact Point could have jeopardized the course of the stimulus package.
Source: The Nordic Page