The parties were expected to decide today whether coalition talks can be continued next week.
Orpo has announced that he has determined the schedule of the discussions.
Riikka PurraThe chairman of the Basic Finns has warned that the populist right-wing party will leave the negotiations if climate and immigration agreements are not reached by the end of the week. Basic Finns will hold its party meeting on Saturday, where Purra is under pressure to deliver something to the party faithful – whether it’s concrete victories on important issues or stories about tough negotiations.
“Let’s just say that we have put our demands on the table. I won’t go into details,” he said quoted saying Helsingin Sanomat yesterday morning.
Other working groups suspended their work at the beginning of this week at the party’s insistence until significant progress has been made on the climate and immigration tables.
Orpo last night acknowledged that there were still significant differences between the parties, but added that it would not have made sense to give the immigration group more time if the parties did not believe in their ability to find a compromise.
“It is difficult because there are big disagreements between the parties, but at the same time the same people say that it is possible to find solutions,” he told reporters at Säätytalo in Helsinki.
The differences are particularly clear between the Basic Finns and the RKP. The former has called for restrictions on both humanitarian and work-related immigration, while the latter has considered that both should be increased, partly to alleviate Finland’s labor shortage.
“Humanitarian immigration is definitely being tightened, but we should find reasonable ways to promote work-based immigration, because it is needed,” Orpo said.
According to him, the climate working group is closer to finishing its work. According to him, the coalition still believes that climate emissions should be reduced with measures that do not increase the everyday costs of ordinary people and do not weaken the competitiveness of industry.
Basic Finns have stated that the obligation to distribute renewable fuels should be reduced, if not completely scrapped, in order to lower the prices of diesel and gasoline.
On Thursday, the Ministry of Transport and Communications expressed its opposition to the idea in a report presented to coalition negotiators and claimed that complying with the obligation is key to reducing traffic emissions.
“In Finland, the climate action that has had the greatest impact on reducing traffic emissions is the obligation to distribute renewable fuels. Since the majority of road vehicles will remain powered by combustion engines, it is crucial that the obligation is sufficiently high in the future as well,” the document reads According to Helsingin Sanomat.
The obligation defines the minimum share of renewable fuels that transport fuel suppliers must distribute annually.
The outgoing government is lowered the obligation temporarily by 7.5 percentage points to 13.5 percent to mitigate the spike in fuel prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The original plan is to increase it to 28 percent in 2024.
The total climate impact of the obligation depends on the type of renewable fuels distributed by suppliers, reminded Helsingin Sanomat. Both environmental advocates and researchers have questioned, for example, the use of palm fatty acid distillate as a raw material for biofuels, claims it can cause more emissions than regular diesel when indirect emissions from rainforest loss are taken into account.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
Source: The Nordic Page
