Finnish MPs Ratify EU Pandemic Fund Despite Opposition

Helsinki, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th May, 2021 ) :The EU's coronavirus rescue package moved a step closer to becoming reality on Tuesday after Finnish MPs, some of the plan's most vocal critics, voted to ratify the proposal.

The 750 billion euro ($910 billion) pandemic recovery fund requires the approval of all 27 member states before it can be paid out to EU countries in the form of grants and loans.

Last month Finland's parliament spooked Brussels after MPs ruled the government must secure a two-thirds majority in order to pass the measure, forcing Prime Minister Sanna Marin to rely on opposition support.

The vote was delayed by almost a week following a filibuster attempt in parliament by the populist Finns Party.

But on Tuesday, 134 MPs voted in favour of the deal, while 57 opposed it, making the country the 22nd EU state to ratify the package.

Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania are yet to approve it.

Finnish MPs in both government and opposition have been vocal critics of the proposal to pool debts and borrow on financial markets, although the country was not officially a member of the "frugal four" of northern European states, which last year opposed the measure.

Opposition MPs seized on comments made by Commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis last week that, if successful, the recovery fund could be repeated in future.

Dombrovskis subsequently made last-minute assurances to Finnish lawmakers on Twitter and by phone that the measure was a "one-off".

"If we are, in practice, forced to accept every one-off measure then 'one-off' is a meaningless term," Finns Party leader Jussi Halla-aho said in parliament last week.

Despite concerns, many MPs said they would vote in favour, fearing the blowback from the rest of the EU if Finland should cause the deal to collapse.

Finland, a relatively small net contributor to the EU, has long been an outspoken opponent of bailouts to other member states.

In 2011 the Nordic nation threatened to thwart a eurozone bailout to Greece, before eventually becoming the only EU country to secure collateral against the rescue package.

Finland's share of the rescue fund payout would be 2.7 billion Euros in the next two years, though it would repay 6.6 billion euros over 30 years from 2028.