{"id":17684,"date":"2026-02-18T19:59:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T19:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/17684\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T19:59:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T19:59:07","slug":"wille-rydman-appointed-finlands-social-affairs-and-health-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/17684\/","title":{"rendered":"Wille Rydman appointed Finland\u2019s social affairs and health minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finland\u2019s Finns Party has appointed Wille Rydman as the new minister of social affairs and health, replacing Kaisa Juuso, who stepped down last week<\/a> citing exhaustion and announced she would take sick leave.<\/p>\n

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The party\u2019s parliamentary group and executive board confirmed the decision on Wednesday. Helsingin Sanomat<\/a> first reported the appointment.<\/p>\n

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Party leader and Finance Minister Riikka Purra said the choice was unanimous.<\/p>\n

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Purra said she asked Rydman to take the post last Friday. \u201cThe portfolio is certainly one of the most demanding in this government,\u201d she told reporters at the party headquarters. She said the role requires the ability to withstand pressure and criticism.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWille Rydman has proven that he can handle difficult situations,\u201d Purra said.<\/p>\n

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Rydman, 40, previously served as minister of economic affairs from 2023 to 2025 in Prime Minister Petteri Orpo\u2019s government. He returned to parliament as a backbencher in June 2025 when the portfolio passed to another Finns Party minister under a planned rotation.<\/p>\n

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He has not focused on social and health policy during his parliamentary career and has not been a member of the parliamentary social affairs and health committee. At the press conference, Rydman pointed to his time on the constitutional law committee during the Sipil\u00e4 government, when he examined major healthcare reform bills from a constitutional perspective.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe social affairs and health portfolio is certainly one of the most difficult, but also one of the most important,\u201d Rydman said. He praised Juuso\u2019s work and said she had worked hard to place the financing of services on a more sustainable footing.<\/p>\n

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The government is preparing further savings in social and healthcare spending. According to Purra, several hundred million euros in previously agreed adjustments remain to be finalised, including more than \u20ac200 million in social welfare savings that have yet to be allocated.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAgreed expenditure adjustments will of course be upheld,\u201d Rydman said. He added that he would review the pending measures and ensure decisions are made before the government\u2019s April spending framework session.<\/p>\n

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He said the savings represent a small share of total social and healthcare expenditure and stressed the need to develop services while securing long-term funding. \u201cWe must ensure services for people today in a way that allows financing them for future generations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Opposition parties criticised the appointment. Green Party leader Sofia Virta said in a statement that Rydman should immediately halt preparations for additional cuts. \u201cAt this moment the social and health portfolio is one of the heaviest in government. Unfortunately, Rydman is known for a harsh and unequal approach to politics,\u201d Virta said. She called on Prime Minister Orpo to launch a cross-party process to reform social and healthcare services.<\/p>\n

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Left Alliance MP Veronika Honkasalo also criticised the choice on Facebook<\/a>, saying Rydman has no experience in social and health matters and has not profiled himself in the field.<\/p>\n

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Rydman joined the Finns Party at the start of 2023 after leaving the National Coalition Party.<\/p>\n

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HT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finland\u2019s Finns Party has appointed Wille Rydman as the new minister of social affairs and health, replacing Kaisa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[158,7323,308,12670,113,8557,8558,8559,12671,12669],"class_list":{"0":"post-17684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-helsinki","8":"tag-finland","9":"tag-finland-government","10":"tag-finns-party","11":"tag-healthcare-cuts","12":"tag-helsinki","13":"tag-kaisa-juuso","14":"tag-riikka-purra","15":"tag-social-affairs-and-health-minister","16":"tag-sofia-virta","17":"tag-wille-rydman"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17684","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=17684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}