{"id":130102,"date":"2024-04-30T09:00:27","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T06:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/news\/finlands-thatcher-tests-limits-of-local-frugality\/"},"modified":"2024-04-30T09:00:27","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T06:00:27","slug":"finlands-thatcher-tests-limits-of-local-frugality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/news\/finlands-thatcher-tests-limits-of-local-frugality\/","title":{"rendered":"Finland\u2019s Thatcher tests limits of local frugality"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mp_wrapper\">\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-message\">\n    <p>You are unauthorized to view this page.<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n  <div class=\"mepr-login-form-wrap\">\n            \n<div class=\"mp_wrapper mp_login_form\">\n                  <!-- mp-login-form-start -->     <form name=\"mepr_loginform\" id=\"mepr_loginform\" class=\"mepr-form\" action=\"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/login-2\/\" method=\"post\" data-trp-original-action=\"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/login-2\/\">\n            <div class=\"mp-form-row mepr_username\">\n        <div class=\"mp-form-label\">\n                              <label for=\"user_login\">Username<\/label>\n        <\/div>\n        <input type=\"text\" name=\"log\" id=\"user_login\" value=\"\" \/>\n      <\/div>\n      <div class=\"mp-form-row mepr_password\">\n        <div class=\"mp-form-label\">\n          <label for=\"user_pass\">Password<\/label>\n          <div class=\"mp-hide-pw\">\n            <input type=\"password\" name=\"pwd\" id=\"user_pass\" value=\"\" \/>\n            <button type=\"button\" class=\"button mp-hide-pw hide-if-no-js\" data-toggle=\"0\" aria-label=\"Show password\">\n              <span class=\"dashicons dashicons-visibility\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span>\n            <\/button>\n          <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n            <div>\n        <label><input name=\"rememberme\" type=\"checkbox\" id=\"rememberme\" value=\"forever\" \/> Remember Me<\/label>\n      <\/div>\n      <div class=\"mp-spacer\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n      <div class=\"submit\">\n        <input type=\"submit\" name=\"wp-submit\" id=\"wp-submit\" class=\"button-primary mepr-share-button\" value=\"Log In\" \/>\n        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"redirect_to\" value=\"\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130102\" \/>\n        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"mepr_process_login_form\" value=\"true\" \/>\n        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"mepr_is_login_page\" value=\"false\" \/>\n      <\/div>\n    <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"trp-form-language\" value=\"en\"\/><\/form>\n    <div class=\"mp-spacer\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n    <div class=\"mepr-login-actions\">\n        <a\n          href=\"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/login-2\/?action=forgot_password\"\n          title=\"Click here to reset your password\"\n        >\n          Forgot Password        <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n\n      \n    <!-- mp-login-form-end --> \n  <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"smart_content_wrapper\">\nFew finance ministers would dare pose smiling with a pair of scissors before making cuts to the national budget, but Finland&#8217;s Riikka Purra did exactly that before a recent announcement of new spending cuts to trim the Nordic country&#8217;s deficit. Efforts to rein in debt levels by tightening purse strings tend to be politically dicey in Europe. However nationalist Finns Party leader Purra bets the typically frugal Finns will be happy to back her austerity cure.<\/p>\n<p>Likened by her political opponents to Britain&#8217;s pro-austerity late premier Margaret Thatcher, Purra in February posted on social media a picture of a gift she had received: two wooden chopping boards in the shape on an axe, with her face and the text &#8220;now is the time to cut&#8221; printed on them. Many viewers were shocked. But a few weeks later a member of Purra&#8217;s party posted another picture on social media with an unapologetic and smiley Purra holding a big pair of scissors.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Think about how easy it is to distribute borrowed money here and there, but how incredibly difficult it is to tame a stubborn debt curve!&#8221; Purra, who has stressed the chopping board picture was just a joke, posted on X last week. She declined Reuters&#8217; request for comment. Even more than other predominantly Protestant countries in northern Europe, Finland has a long tradition of emphasising frugality in both household and national finances.<\/p>\n<p>Finland&#8217;s economy has been one of the worst performing in the euro zone in recent years, putting pressure on its public finances, already strained by the COVID-19 pandemic and an ageing population. Headwinds from the energy crunch that followed Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine, as well as rising defence spending and loss of business with Russia, have hit Finland particularly hard.\u00a0As a result, Finland has found itself among the dozen or so EU member states that risk penalties set out in the bloc&#8217;s excessive deficit procedure for deficits above 3% of gross domestic product and overall debt above 60% of GDP.<\/p>\n<p>Purra and the four-party right-wing coalition have announced cuts to welfare benefits and social and healthcare services funding, plus a 1.5% point increase to Finland&#8217;s value added tax to 25%, and plans to shed potentially thousands of public sector jobs. Finland&#8217;s deficit is expected to grow to 3.5% of gross domestic product this year from 2.5% in 2023, but the government&#8217;s cuts will curb it to 2.8% in 2025. Public debt is still expected to rise to 82.8% of GDP next year.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/europe\/finlands-thatcher-tests-limits-local-frugality-2024-04-29\/\">Read more&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source:<a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/europe\/finlands-thatcher-tests-limits-local-frugality-2024-04-29\/\"> Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/vaufien\/finlands-thatcher-tests-limits-of-local-frugality\/\">Finland&#8217;s Thatcher tests limits of local frugality<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\">Vastuullisuusuutiset.fi<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[14352,14353,606,607,608],"class_list":["post-130102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-finnish-thatcher","tag-puraa","tag-vau_viikkokatsaus","tag-vauen","tag-vaufien"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}