Yee! We kept are seat against all odds.

My candidate from the swedish people´s party (ELDR in EP), Mr Henrik Lax succeeded to take the last Finnish mandate, against all polls and predictions from the bigger groups. With the EU enlargement Finland lost two seats (from 16 to 14) and it was generally speculated that one of those loosers would be ours. But we fought and our electorate voted more avtively than others. The voting rate rose with 10 % generally in Finland too, opposed to most other EU countries. We had no anti -EU fenomena as in Sweden, where the june-list took 14% ! In Finland the conservatives won (4 seats), the center-rural party came second (4 seats) and the social-democrats came third (3 seats). The greens lost their second seat.

The Roma question i.e. the poor situation of the gypsies in Europe, was not an issue in the elections, even if it perhaps should have been. If someone is interested, look for Amnesty Internationals recent human rights report from Slovakia.

Comments

[redworm]

Congrats on your party's victory, but perhaps you mean to say "our seat."
Best wishes from San Francisco

[peterelk]

Welcome to the blogosphere, Eva!

I can't help but wonder why the Roma issue was not discussed in the elections. It is directly linked to the restrictions most old EU members are imposing on free movement of labor from the new member states. At least in Finland, these restrictions stem partly from the xenophobic and complacent idea that the whole Slovakian Roma population will migrate to Finland in order to take advantage of the generous welfare benefits.

[Panu]

Vi här i finska Blogistan (http://www.pinseri.com/bloglist/top.html) har storligen undrat vad det är för väljare du vill nå till på engelska, Eva. Såvitt jag vet är engelskan ännu inte officiella språket i Finland.

[Joi Ito]

Thank you for informing me about the Roma question. That's quite interesting and I agree that it should have been discussed in the elections. Maybe you can write a post on your position on the Roma question.

[Anton]

Testar hur detta fungerar.

[el T]

Etusivun otsikon "are" tilalla on varmaan tarkoitus olla ollut "our", ja seat pitäis olla monikossa.

Evalla on kyllä silmälasit mutta... kun tuo on suurin teksti koko sivulla. En edes lukenut pitemmälle

We kept are seat against all odds

[Seppo Lehto]

Sopisi Evan vastata anteeksipyyntökierroksesta Outi Ojalan kanssa kun v. 1991 onnistuivat ruuttaamaan vaivoiksemme somaliraiskaajia ja murhamiehiä, jotka ovat kunnostautuneet Tuuli Ikosen murhan 1995 jälkeen uudelleen

[Vittuuntunut Partamies]

Tuokaa hankonne ja haulikkohonne, lähtekäämme kaikki yhdessä nyt puhdistamahan Suomea somalikyrvistä, jotka tämä noita maahamme loihti.

Isänmaallisin fiiliksin eteenpäin!

[treasureac]

circulation jaiku roughly first