“It is a tradition in Finland that we are all about the motherland and do not make unnecessary disputes,” predicts Defense Minister Häkkänen about his cooperation with the new president.
The coalition chairman, prime minister Petteri Orpo anticipates that the cooperation between him and the president-elect on Sunday by Alexander Stubb sometimes turns out to be good.
The president manages foreign policy together with the country's government. That is why contact with the prime minister is essential.
Petteri Orpo challenged Stubb as the chairman of the coalition in 2016. According to Orpo, there was nothing left to rub their differences.
“Everyone can see that the intervals are uncomplicated,” Orpo commented in a television interview.
The coalition now has a so-called foreign policy color straight, i.e. a member of the coalition handles the duties of president, prime minister and foreign minister.
“We are building NATO-Finland, we are integrating Finland once and for all,” Orpo described the role of the coalition.
Foreign minister Elina Valtonen (kok) liked the Finnish model, where EU affairs belong to the prime minister, but the management of foreign policy, including the management of NATO delegations, belongs to the president. According to Valtonen, this guarantees that Finland meets widely with different countries and colleagues in different contexts.
in Finland the president is also the commander-in-chief of the defense forces. Therefore, cooperation with the Minister of Defense is also important.
Minister of Defense Antti Häkkänen (kok) described the cooperation with the current president as close, and believed that the cooperation would also work with the next president.
“Even though we are going to the NATO era, it is a tradition in Finland to be all about the motherland and not make unnecessary disputes. Maybe Stubb's line was now more to the people's liking,” Antti Häkkänen commented after the preliminary votes were announced.
Back in August, Häkkänen himself said that he was considering running as the coalition's presidential candidate. Stubb was nominated as the coalition's candidate in October.
However, Häkkänen did not want to compare the sitting president Sauli Niinistö and Stubbia, because the president always works in his own time.
“Niinistö's era was different. Now we operate in a new world situation. Niinistö's season kind of ended with this transition, so it's bad to compare to the old one,” said Häkkänen.
Presidential of the competitors who sought the position, Stubb was among the first to be publicly congratulated by the candidate of the Christian Democrats, who fell in the first round Sari Essayah.
Also a candidate in the first round of the Left Alliance Lee Andersson congratulated Stubb.
“The president's most important job is to promote peace and stability. A great campaign and a message about the importance of unity is also really important in this time,” Andersson wrote on the messaging service X (formerly Twitter).
Eliminated in the first round Olli Rehn both congratulated and wished success for the demanding task.
“A fair, rigorous campaign will strengthen Finnish democracy and give the new TP a solid foundation to lead Finland's foreign policy,” Rehn wrote in X.
Non-aligned candidate, director of the Foreign Policy Institute Mika Aaltolasupported Stubb and was also present at his election supervisors in the second round.
“On the academic side, we have cooperated. He has a phenomenal networking ability”, Aaltola characterized Stubbia in an interview with HS.
Sdp's chairman Antti Lindtman wished Stubbs luck in his position as president of the republic.
“The president's task is to stably manage foreign and security policy in cooperation with the Government. Broad cooperation in foreign policy will continue to be necessary. We look forward to constructive and good cooperation in the coming years”, Lindtman hoped in X.
Former chairman of Sdp, former prime minister Sanna Marin congratulated Stubb on the social media service Instagram.
Also the chairman of the center Annika Saarikko and chairman of Rkp Anna-Maja Henriksson publicly congratulated Stubb:
Congratulations also came from the direction of the EU. Stubb was congratulated, for example, by the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.
President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola congratulated Stubb in both English and Finnish.
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