Helsingin Sanomat<\/a> and later confirmed by government representatives, the Finns Party lost an internal cabinet vote on Tuesday morning over the handling of the funding criteria.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Following that decision, Orpo announced that preparation of the criteria would begin again under a new process involving senior civil servants.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The prime minister said the aim was to ensure transparency and trust in the allocation of grants. He said the criteria would be prepared again and decided jointly.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The dispute emerged after Rydman unveiled plans to redirect funding towards organisations engaged in direct health and welfare work. Under the criteria announced last week, organisations focused primarily on advocacy or advisory work would no longer qualify for support. National umbrella groups and organisations with substantial assets would also face restrictions.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Another provision stated that organisations whose activities focus mainly on a single non-health-related background or identity group would not qualify for funding.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Government partners argued that such changes should have been discussed and approved collectively before being announced.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Education Minister Anders Adlercreutz, who leads RKP, said the issue was not the existence of funding reforms but the failure to follow agreed government procedures.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He said coalition cooperation depends on trust and adherence to common decisions.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to Adlercreutz, ministers had previously agreed that decisions concerning funding criteria would be handled jointly.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He said RKP’s decision to abstain in the confidence vote reflected the seriousness with which the party viewed the matter, but said that the party did not want to trigger a larger political crisis and therefore chose not to vote against the minister.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Adlercreutz also welcomed Orpo’s intervention and said the prime minister had restored the issue to a proper decision-making process.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Finns Party rejected accusations that it had acted improperly.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Finance Minister Riikka Purra, who chairs the party, said no mistakes had been made during the preparation of the criteria.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She described recent developments as unusual and criticised RKP’s decision to abstain.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Purra said the move amounted to pulling the rug from under the prime minister and called the situation concerning.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She also argued that critics had failed to present concrete alternatives to the proposed criteria.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to Purra, the reforms were designed to respond to lower levels of funding available in future budgets and to focus resources on organisations delivering services directly to people.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The government has already decided to reduce funding for social and health organisations by roughly one-third next year, increasing pressure on how remaining resources should be distributed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Despite Orpo’s decision to reopen preparation of the criteria, Rydman indicated that he does not expect major changes before the next funding application round.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Applications are scheduled to open in September.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The minister told reporters that organisations should continue preparing applications based on the criteria already announced.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He argued that the criteria fall within ministerial authority and said there had been no prior agreement requiring collective cabinet approval for such guidance.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rydman also questioned whether a new regulation could be completed during the summer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He said any new government decree would require broad political support and suggested that such support does not currently exist within the coalition.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Orpo attempted to calm tensions by noting that coalition governments often experience policy disagreements and that compromises have previously been reached.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He expressed confidence that cooperation would continue despite the latest dispute.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
HT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finland’s coalition government faced one of its most difficult internal disputes of the current term on Tuesday after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[87],"tags":[47483,16608,158,57274,342,308,113,3926,8558,11827,57275,55347,12669],"class_list":["post-114600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-helsinki","tag-anders-adlercreutz","tag-coalition-government","tag-finland","tag-finland-government-crisis","tag-finland-parliament","tag-finns-party","tag-helsinki","tag-petteri-orpo","tag-riikka-purra","tag-rkp","tag-social-and-health-organisations","tag-stea-funding","tag-wille-rydman"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116799225674215615","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}