Policy|Memoir
Ilkka Suominen, who led the Coalition Party, was a friend of the West and the East who wanted to believe that extensive co-operation between the EU member states and Russia would be in the interests of Europe as a whole.
Former Speaker of Parliament, Minister Ilkka Suominen died on May 23, 2022 at his home in Helsinki.
He was 83 years old, born on April 8, 1939 in Nakkila.
“Polish your shoes before you go to interview Finland ”, was a permanent instruction in the policy of Helsingin Sanomat in recent years. We journalists knew that Suominen looked at the newcomer’s shoes first. The attention came from the home-grown of the tanner’s family.
Suku trained Ilkka from Finland in Britain and West Germany and trained him to be the CEO of the family business JW Suominen, who became him in 1975.
Only four years later, however, he agreed with his friend, the chairman of the Coalition Party Harri Holkerin request and allowed himself to be succeeded as Holker’s successor. Ilkka and spouse Riitta gave up a comfortable life in Nakkila and took up politics as a couple. Riitta Suominen (1946–2015) was her husband’s most important supporter.
Burning Politics had been born in his youth, and Ilkka Suominen did not get out of it. Still on the morning of the last day of his life, he checked the news of the day, tapped a message to his friends, and thus showed that he was following his time.
When he became party leader, Suominen had one goal above the others. The party stuck in the standing opposition had to grow to a viable and large size so that the parade door of the government would open.
Eligibility was a key code in politics in the 1970s and early 1980s. Relations with Moscow determined the eligibility of major parties for government. The SDP, the Center and the Skdl were eligible for Moscow, the Coalition did not.
In spring 1987 Suominen had achieved its goals. Moscow no longer opposed the Coalition Party’s entry into the government, the party had won a major victory in the parliamentary elections and Suominen had a central Paavo Väyrynen and Rkp Christoffer Taxellin a secret agreement with which the parties had to assemble a government if the bourgeois parties won a majority in the election. As they received.
President Mauno Koivisto however, was stronger than Suominen, Väyrynen and Taxell combined. When the game began, Koivisto called on the government to form Harri Holker, who, under “manual control,” assembled the Social Democrats and the Coalition Party’s purple government.
Suominen he walked over, but he swallowed his anger and retained the restrained charm of the bourgeoisie: he continued as party leader, served as Minister of Trade and Industry in Holker’s government, cooperated with the Social Democrats and supported Koivisto’s cautious foreign policy.
Only once did Suominen speak out against Koivisto and Holker. A meeting of the European Conservative Parties was held in Helsinki in the autumn of 1990, and when it opened, he predicted that Finland would become a member of the pre-EU EC in the next few years. The speech caused a stir, as the yya agreement was still in force and steps to the west were still being considered.
Of the year After the 1991 election defeat, Suominen resigned as party leader and was elected Speaker of Parliament. From there, he became CEO of Alko. When Alko’s position changed, Suominen left the company. He was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 and its Vice-President for five years. It was a dream job where he could draw on his international skills.
Suominen’s extensive contact network extended from west to east. At the other end of the network was the long-serving German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and in another, the rock-hard communists of Moscow and Tehtaankatu. His excellent language skills and excellent social skills allowed him to cross all boundaries.
A direct line to Kohli helped solve many problems when Finland aspired to become a member of the EU. Communication continued closely until Kohl’s death.
Of course there was a whitewash of political opportunism, yet there was much more genuine conviction and confidence. Ilkka Suominen was a friend of the West and the East who wanted to believe that extensive co-operation between the EU member states and Russia would be in the interests of Europe as a whole.
It was tragic that, shortly before his death, he had to witness how Russia had broken the hard-built dimmer that had maintained peace and cooperation in Europe for decades.
Read more: Ilkka Suominen signed a secret agreement in the 1987 elections, the consequences of which were severe – says in his biography a surprising amount about his private self
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