Sipilä's cabinet

Sipilä's cabinet
	74. Cabinet of the Republic of Finland
Prime Minister	Juha Sipilä
choice	2015
Legislative period	37.
Appointed by	President Sauli Niinistö
education	May 29, 2015
The End	March 8, 2019
Duration	3 years and 283 days
predecessor	Cabinet Stubb
successor	Cabinet gutter
composition
Party (s)	since June 13, 2017: ; KESK , KOK , SIN ; to June 13, 2017: ; KESK , KOK , PS
representation
Finnish Parliament	104/200
Opposition leader	Antti Gutter ( SDP )

The Sipilä cabinet was the 74th cabinet in the Republic of Finland . It was formed following the 2015 general election and sworn in by President Sauli Niinistö on May 29, 2015 . As of June 2017, the cabinet consisted of a coalition of the Finnish Center Party , the Blue Future and the National Collection Party . The Prime Minister of the Cabinet is Juha Sipilä . A few weeks before the upcoming parliamentary election , the cabinet resigned on March 8, 2019 due to a dispute over future health policy, but remained in office until the formation of the Rinne cabinet on June 6, 2019.

In the parliamentary elections on April 19, 2015 , Prime Minister Alexander Stubb's conservative rallying party dropped to second place behind the Center Party under Juha Sipilä . At the same time, the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset ("Basic Finns") was able to assert itself as the third strongest force. The Social Democrats switched to the opposition after a disappointing result. According to the coalition talks , a government of the three biggest was center-right -Parteien, the Center Party, the National Coalition Party and the base Finns formed. The Center Party returned to government after four years of opposition and the right-wing populist grassroots were part of a government for the first time, at the same time it was the first time since 1979 that the Swedish People's Party was left out of the government. The center-right coalition had a total of 124 seats (62%) in the 200-seat parliament . On June 22, 2016, grassroots politician Maria Tolppanen joined the Social Democratic Party , which reduced the government's seats in parliament to 123.

After the elections for the party leadership based Finns 2017 due was sedition convicted Jussi Halla-aho new party chairman. On June 12, 2017, Prime Minister Sipilä and Finance Minister Orpo declared that they saw no reason to continue working with the grassroots, thus announcing the imminent dissolution of the cabinet. They cited differences of opinion in the values of the parties and the fact that the MEP Halla-aho wants to lead the party from Brussels . On the following day, June 13, 2017, a group, including all cabinet members, split off from the Basic Finns and formed a parliamentary group called the Blue Future (initially New Alternative ) and agreed to continue the government work with its members and the agreed program . As a result, the Blue Future was included in the cabinet and the coalition with the grassroots Finns was terminated. There was no reshuffle of the cabinet. The cabinet had 104 seats in the Finnish parliament.

The Sipilä cabinet consisted of 17 ministers, eleven male and six female, which makes 35 percent women.

Government negotiations

The government negotiations began on May 8, 2015 between the Center Party , the Basic Finns and the National Assembly Party in Helsinki . At the beginning of the negotiations, working groups were set up on four different topics. These were the Strategic Group, the foreign and security policy group , the group of immigrants and the EU policy group . Working groups for work , education , bioeconomy , reforms, sustainable public finances , taxes and internal security were later set up. After the negotiations it was decided to set up a working group for housing construction .

The governing parties had agreed that the government program will be significantly shorter, earlier than programs governments. The goal was a strategy paper about 5 to 10 pages long. However, the result of government negotiations was a 74-page government program with very detailed decisions.

Government negotiations went smoothly and the parties quickly found a common position on many issues. During the negotiations it was decided, among other things, to charge tuition fees from students from countries outside the European Union and the European Economic Area . In terms of immigration policy, it was decided to leave the refugee quota unchanged compared to the demands of the basic Finns. With regard to taxes, the parties agreed that the overall tax rate will not increase during the election period and that there will be both tax cuts. However, as part of the social agreement, the compulsory payments by wage earners have been increased: the unemployment insurance contribution is transferred to the employee by 0.85 percentage points and the income-related pension contribution by 1.2 percentage points.

The parties estimated the need for an adjustment of € 6 billion by the Treasury Department, which would cut four government spending and € 2 billion in local spending. If the social agreement envisaged by Sipilä can be formed, the government is ready to cut billions in income tax. The Strategic Government Program was published on May 27, 2015 and the new government was sworn in by President Sauli Niinistö on May 29, 2015 .

Social agreements and competitiveness

Before the government negotiations began in May 2015, Sipilä wanted to have a "social agreement" signed in order to improve Finland's productivity and competitiveness. The first version of the social agreement was written by Mikko Alkio . The aim was to improve productivity by 5%. The Finnish Industry Association, municipal employers, SAK, Akava and STTK as well as Finnish entrepreneurs took part in the consultations.

In order to increase productivity by 5%, it has been proposed to increase working hours without increasing costs. In the press, the agreement was even referred to as "extortion" because the government had announced that it would achieve additional savings of 1.5 billion euros and not implement any conditional tax cuts.

After the initial negotiations, the project was known as the "Competitiveness Agreement". By early June 2016, almost all unions had agreed to an agreement that cut labor costs by 4.2 percent per hour. According to the agreement, all contract wages were frozen for one year, annual working hours were extended by an average of 24 hours without remuneration and vacation pay for public employees was reduced by 30%. In addition, employers' earnings-related pension and unemployment insurance contributions were cut and salaries increased.

European politics

A Greek loan program was recorded in the government program, according to which Finland's payments should not be increased. When the Greek loan was only granted a few weeks after the formation of the government, Foreign Minister Timo Soini announced on July 10, 2015 that Finland would no longer grant loans to Greece . On July 12, 2015, Finance Minister Alexander Stubb announced that Finland's position in the Greek negotiations is constantly changing. On July 16, 2015, it became known that Finland had granted Greece an additional loan of 1.5 billion euros without collateral. After the government's support package, Finland's share of Greece's debt rose to the fifth largest in Europe.

minister

At the beginning of the term of office there were a total of 14 ministers in the cabinet: six ministers from the Center Party and four ministers each from the National Collection Party and four from the Basic Finns. In April 2017, the government decided to split some areas of expertise into three new departments in order to reduce the workload for individual ministers. Each party received an additional ministerial post.

On June 13, 2017, the five cabinet posts of the Basic Finns were filled with members of the Blue Future . In doing so, Timo Soini had to leave the office of vice premier to the now second largest coalition partner, the gathering party.

Sipilä's cabinet
Office / department	Surname
Prime Minister	Juha Sipilä	KESK
Deputy Prime Minister	Timo Soini until June 28, 2017	PS
Deputy Prime Minister	Petteri Orpo since June 28, 2017	COOK
Minister for Foreign Affairs	Timo Soini	SIN
Minister for Foreign Trade and Development	Lenita Toivakka until June 22, 2016	COOK
	Kai Mykkänen June 22, 2016 to February 12, 2018
	Anne-Mari Virolainen since February 12, 2018
Minister of Justice	Jari Lindström Minister for Justice and Labor until May 5, 2017	PS
Minister of Justice	Antti Häkkänen since May 5, 2017	COOK
Minister of Labor	Jari Lindström has only been Minister of Labor since May 5, 2017	SIN
Minister of the Interior	Petteri Orpo until June 22, 2016	COOK
	Paula Riskko June 22, 2016 to February 12, 2018
	Kai Mykkänen since February 12, 2018
Minister of Defense	Jussi Niinistö	SIN
Minister of Finance	Alexander Stubb until June 22, 2016	COOK
Minister of Finance	Petteri Orpo since June 22, 2016	COOK
Minister for Local Authorities and Administrative Reforms	Anu Vehviläinen	KESK
Minister of Education	Sanni Grahn-Laasonen	COOK
Minister for European Affairs, Culture and Sport	Sampo Terho since May 5, 2017	SIN
Minister of Agriculture	Jari Leppä since May 5, 2017	KESK
Minister for Transport and Communication	Anne Berner	KESK
Minister for Economy	Olli Rehn until December 29, 2016	KESK
Minister for Economy	Mika Lintilä since December 29, 2016	KESK
Minister for Social Affairs and Health	Hanna Mäntylä until August 25, 2017	PS
Minister for Social Affairs and Health	Pirkko Mattila since August 25, 2017	SIN
Minister for Families and Social Services	Juha Rehula until July 10, 2017	KESK
Minister for Families and Social Services	Annika Saarikko since July 10, 2017	KESK
Minister for Housing, Energy and the Environment	Kimmo Tiilikainen	KESK

politics

energy

In September 2016, Minister of Economic Affairs Olli Rehn announced his support for the enactment of an energy subsidy for the use of oil and coal in heavy industry as a compensation measure for the costs of the EU emissions trading system. The subsidy would cover around 100 industrial plants, with forestry being the main benefit .

economy

Sipila’s government has struggled with Finland’s poor economic performance, which, according to Paul Krugman , was caused, among other things, by the constraints of its membership in the euro zone and the European debt crisis , but also by the decline of the paper industry , the decline in exports to Russia and the decline in popularity of Nokia . Attempts to address the issues by cutting government spending and lowering labor costs have been controversial, particularly in relation to spending on education, which has been seen as a threat to Finland's successful public education system. These austerity measures were partly implemented under pressure from the European Commission , which asked Finland to better comply with the Stability and Growth Pact and to reform its labor market to improve competitiveness . On July 22, 2015, Sipilä announced the government's commitment to cut Finnish labor costs by 5% by 2019 in order to increase competitiveness. After lengthy negotiations, the "competition contract" (Finnish: kilpailykykysopimus) was finally agreed in the summer of 2016, covering 90% of wage earners and an estimated impact of 4.2% on labor costs. According to data from the Central Bank of Finland , the contract turned out to be largely successful in 2017, with a significant improvement in competitiveness, a growth rate of 3%, a reduction in unemployment and an increase in exports.