News : Marin finished in Finland

Monday, April 3, 2023

Marin finished in Finland

Apr 03, 2023

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With neither the Senate nor the House in session this week, the political action is outside of Washington: from Russia throwing political hand grenades in New York while holding the U.N. Security Council presidency through April, to the fallout of three elections in Europe: two cliffhangers in Finland and Bulgaria, and the end of a three-decade presidency in Montenegro.

And then there’s Donald Trump’s arrest … more on that below.

FINNISH PM SANNA MARIN DEFEATED IN CLIFFHANGER ELECTION: In the months leading up to Sunday’s election, the top three parties in Finland swapped the lead in polls: whoever inched ahead always remained within the polling margin of error. Now, with 99 percent of votes counted (yes, in a single night), Petteri Orpo, the leader of Finland's center-right National Coalition Party, has claimed victory after securing 48 of Finland’s 200 parliamentary seats.

That result leaves Orpo two seats ahead of the far-right Finns Party, and five seats ahead of Marin’s Social Democrats: meaning Orpo needs to form a multi-party coalition in the coming days to claim power.

POLITICO’s Charlie Duxbury profiled Orpo here. Aura Salla, Meta's top lobbyist in Brussels, will be leaving her role to take up a seat in parliament for the new ruling party.

Losing while winning: Marin’s Social Democrats actually increased their number of seats from 40 to 43, a particularly unusual gain in Finland’s fractious multi-party politics, but to no avail. Sarin’s tenure will be remembered for the country’s NATO revolution: turning 180 degrees from decades of neutrality to NATO members in the space of a few months in 2022 and 2023.

Left out: Marin’s loss follows that of Sweden’s Magdalena Andersson voted out at a general election last September, and comes alongside Germany’s Olaf Scholz being under pressure at home.

BULGARIA — RULING RIGHT-WING PARTY ON EDGE OF DEFEAT: In their fifth election in two years Sunday, Bulgarians seemed at first to have given a new pro-Western coalition — We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria — a narrow lead with 26.4 percent of the vote.

This morning the results have shifted: the center-right ruling party, GERB, is now in the lead with 26.5 percent of the vote, compared to 25 percent for the pro-Western coalition

MONTENEGRANS END THREE DECADE PRESIDENTIAL RULE: Former Economy Minister Jakov Milatović — who campaigned on an anti-corruption, pro-EU platform — has managed to unseat Milo Đukanović after more than three decades of rule in Sunday’s presidential runoff. Milatović won around 60 percent of the vote, though few official results have been announced. Reuters has the latest. Check out the backstory in Brussels Playbook.

THE WEEK AHEAD

MONDAY

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Belgium through Wednesday for a NATO Foreign Ministerial meeting and the tenth U.S.-EU Energy Council meeting.

President Joe Biden will tout clean energy investments in Minnesota, while Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley today will become the first 2024 presidential candidate to visit the U.S.-Mexico border.

TUESDAY

Courting China: European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron are in Beijing putting on a united front meeting President Xi Jinping.

Trump arraignment: Former President Donald Trump will be dominating the news cycle on Tuesday, when he’s expected to become the first U.S. president to be arrested (and released) in New York, in the first of three ongoing criminal cases against him. POLITICO looked at how Trump could drag out the proceedings and “push the trial deep into the 2024 presidential campaign” and how Fox News and Trump are kissing and making up.

Inclusive growth: David Malpass, outgoing president of the World Bank Group, will address the Atlantic Council on Tuesday on his vision for inclusive growth — also a way to push complaints about Malpass’s climate policies to the side as he prepares to depart.

THURSDAY

Global Insider will interview International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva live on-stage, on the global economic outlook and key priorities for policymakers, ahead of the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings starting April 10. Join Ryan online or at the Meridian International Center. RSVP here.

WHERE TO JOIN GLOBAL INSIDER

Milken Global Conference: We're bringing a special edition Global Insider newsletters to the #MIGlobal Conference in LA, 4/30-5/3. Follow @PoliticoRyan and check your inbox for on-stage insights from global leaders in health, finance, politics, philanthropy and more.

POLITICO’s first ever Global Tech Day is taking place June 15 at County Hall, London, and online. Register here.

NEW PRODUCT UPDATE - POLITICO's China Watcher now hits inboxes twice weekly (Tuesday & Thursday). POLITICO's EU-China Correspondent Stuart Lau will be writing this expanded newsletter together with our colleague Phelim Kine from across the Atlantic in Washington. We’re living in a world where geopolitics are shaped and reshaped in Brussels, Washington, and Beijing — China Watcher will attempt to decode these global relationships to give our readers a full picture of the world’s diplomatic relations with China. Sign up to China Watcher

GLOBAL RISKS AND TRENDS

ECONOMY — IMF APPROVES LOAN PACKAGE TO FLOAT UKRAINE: The International Monetary Fund’s executive board approved a four-year $15.6 billion loan program over the weekend, part of a global $115 billion package to support Kyiv as it fights to keep the country intact. The Zelenskyy government will need to increase tax collection and strengthen anti-corruption efforts to access all of the cash.

TRADE CORNER

U.K. TO JOIN INDO-PACIFIC TRADE BLOC: Remember how the sun never set on the British Empire? Now it won’t set on British trade deals either.

The U.K. government announced Friday the details of its participation in the 11-nation Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership bloc, which stretches from Canada to Japan to Australia and smaller economies in between.

Reality check: While the deal delivers wins for London across a number of sectors, including agriculture, Britain already has trade deals with 9 of the 11 existing signatories: all members except Malaysia and Brunei.

WASHINGTON AND BRUSSELS FACE NEW IRA BUMPS: While the Biden administration and European Commission are racing to settle their dispute over tax credits for electric vehicles, their attempted fix is creating new problems, my colleagues Steven Overly and Barbara Moens report.

On Friday the U.S. Treasury Department broadened the definition of a trade deal, a move that would qualify European automakers for some of the taxpayer subsidies embedded in the Inflation Reduction Act. Under the new criteria, a critical minerals agreement the Biden administration signed with Japan this week, as well as the one the U.S. and EU soon hope to sign, will qualify as “free trade agreements.”

Some U.S. lawmakers worry those negotiations will set a precedent undermining their role in trade deals. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again so there is no confusion: Congress will not, under any circumstance, forfeit our constitutionally mandated oversight responsibility of all trade matters,” Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), chair of the House Ways and Means trade subcommittee, said in a statement Friday.

ENERGY CORNER

REALITY CHECK — STOP TALKING ABOUT OPEC+ PRODUCTION CUTS: Yes, the oil cartel announced a plan to cut oil production by a million barrels a day … out of total global production of more than 80 million barrels a day.

The move seems designed to manipulate markets into a self-fulfilling prophecy around a supply or price crunch. It’s the oil production equivalent of being stuck in light traffic: nothing to stress about.

ENERGY — GERMANY TWISTS EUROPE’S GREEN FUEL PLANS: Officials in Brussels have long wanted to ban cars that run on fossil fuels, and last week they almost got their way. But the European Union has bowed to pressure from Germany’s powerful automotive industry and will allow new combustion engine cars to be sold past 2035, provided they run on climate-neutral fuel such as e-methane or e-kerosene. The move is a concession to luxury car manufacturers such as Porsche and Ferrari, which remain laggards in the transition to electric vehicles.

"The direction of travel is clear: in 2035, new cars and vans must have zero emissions," EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said as the final deal was reached.

ITALY — GOVERNMENTS PUSHES TO OUTLAW ANGLOMANIA: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party has proposed imposing fines of up to $110,000 against organizations who use foreign terms, most notably English, instead of Italian in official communications.

First in the firing line: Adolfo Urso, the minister for industry and “made in Italy”

BY THE NUMBERS — CANADA OUTGROWS CALIFORNIA

Canada’s population is now bigger than California’s.

The population up north is now 39.57 million, per Statistics Canada, while California’s total has fallen to just a tick over 39 million.

But California is either the fourth or fifth biggest economy in the world, and Canada is only the ninth-biggest economy.

GLOBETROTTERS

TECH’S FYRE FESTIVAL — THE STARTUP CONVENTION THAT WASN’T: Imagine Elon Musk and Indian government ministers mingling with the world’s most famous startup and investor, Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s CEO. And then keep imagining it: because it never happened. Mimansa Verma takes you inside the mess of the World Startup Convention.

U.S. TO OPEN EMBASSY IN VANUATU: The State Department plan still needs congressional approval, per a statement, but would see the U.S government expand its presence in the Pacific via a new embassy in Port Vila. A deputy ambassador currently serves the island nation via visits from Papua New Guinea.

MOVES

Meet America’s new high-speed rail daddy. Fresh from fixing a flailing London Underground line, after being booted out of NewYork’s MTA, Amtrak has hired Andy Byford to get its systems into the 21st century.

Gill Whitehead starts today as head of online safety at the U.K. communications regulator, and Angela McLean starts as the U.K. government’s chief scientific adviser.

Companies Glen Echo Group, BerlinRosen and Derris are opening a joint European office in Amsterdam, focusing on media relations, public affairs and strategic communications. It'll be led by Colin Bortner, who was previously a Netflix Director of Global Public Policy and Caroline Behringer, former spokesperson for U.S. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Michael Rabinowitz-Gold from BerlinRosen.

Former Treasury Assistant Secretary for Investment Security Thomas Feddo has joined Patomak Global Partners as a Senior Advisor.

BRAIN FOOD

America’s life crisis: United States life expectancy is now lower in every income category than its peers. FT data journalist John Burn Murdoch writes “Things have deteriorated so much that the average American now has the same healthy life expectancy (years lived in good health) as someone in Blackpool, the town with England’s lowest life expectancy (by far), synonymous with deep-rooted social decline.”

Turkey is the headache NATO needs: It’s a marriage of mutual convenience, but it’s still a marriage, writes Lili Bayer.

Troops film boys killing in Burkina Faso: Gruesome, from AP, and a reminder of what a messy world it is out there.

Thanks to editor Heidi Vogt, Daniel Lippman and producer Sophie Gardner.

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