http://www.helsinki-hs.net/news.asp?id=20030502IE4
Home - Friday 2.5.2003
Cold weather dampens May Day revelry; political speeches focus on new Government
The traditional Finnish spring festival, the First of May, was launched already on Wednesday evening with various events around the country. The unofficial launch of the festival was the placing of a custom-made white student cap on the head of the Havis Amanda statue on Helsinki's Market Square. Students from the various establishments of higher education take turns in conducting the ceremony each year; this year it was the turn of students of the Sibelius Academy and the University of Art and Design. The cheerful revelry on Wednesday and Thursday was dampened somewhat by the chilly and occasionally damp weather. Also, an ice hockey match in which the Finnish national team was playing, kept many people off the streets and in their living rooms on Wednesday.
Typically, the First of May celebrations kept police in Finnish cities busy Wednesday night and Thursday. A number of scuffles and acts of vandalism were reported, but serious violence was avoided. In the Helsinki region Police and rescue officials noted that the revelry was somewhat subdued by the cold weather, with much of the partying taking place indoors. The most serious incident took place early Wednesday evening in Helsinki's Kallio district, when a dispute between two young men led to the stabbing of one of them. However, the victim's wounds were not life-threatening.
In Thursday's political speeches the focus was on the performance of Finland's new three-party Government. In her May Day speech in Helsinki Prime Minister Anneli Jäätteenmäki (Centre) said that all possible means must be used in the fight against unemployment. She also called for patience and responsibility on the part of employers and employees, so that the slump in the economy might be passed by with a minimum of damage. Jäätteenmäki criticised the main opposition party, the National Coalition Party, for being uncooperative. Defence Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) said in Hyvinkää that the Government has come under odd criticism from the opposition. He denounced as unfounded comments from the National Coalition Party that the Government's policy programme does not offer enough to families with children. Vanhanen said that the National Coalition Party had offered families much less during the election campaign.
Social Democratic Party leader, Parliamentary Speaker Paavo Lipponen said that Finland should not shut itself out of deeper defence cooperation in the European Union. Speaking in Kuopio, Lipponen said that Finland should not be left as a bystander when important security and defence policy decisions are made. 'In a union that is strengthening mutual solidarity, appealing to a non-aligned status could prove to be an empty point of view.' Lipponen said that Finland's policy on the development of the EU's cooperation in defence is active and practical. He emphasised that Europe does not need duplicated defence structures, and that the EU should focus on the creation of a capability for crisis management. Having served as Prime Minister in the two previous governments, Lipponen criticised the attitude of the Finnish business community toward the policy programme of the new Government. 'Business has its own understandable hopes for economic and taxation policy. However, it is strange if large interest groups take a strong prejudicial attitude before the Government has made its first economic policy decision', said Lipponen.
Lauri Ihalainen, the president of Finland's largest trade union confederation, the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK), said that the trade union movement has an open and cooperative attitude toward the new Government. Speaking in Jyväskylä, Ihalainen said that the SAK would evaluate the performance of the new Government mainly on the basis on how it succeeds in the fight against unemployment and in labour reform. He also emphasised that the SAK would not accept any weakening of unemployment benefits. Not all trade union speakers were as positive as Ihalainen. Speaking in Iisalmi, Matti Putkonen, head of information of Finland's Metalworkers' Union, criticised Anneli Jäätteenmäki's statements on Iraq during the election campaign. He said that they had caused Finland economic and political damage. Putkonen calculated that Jäätteenmäki's comments cost Finland between 20,000 and 40,000 man-work-years in reconstruction projects in Iraq.
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