National Coalition Party MP Tere Sammallahti has hit back at veteran Social Democrat Erkki Tuomioja over his criticism of the party’s current immigration policy and its relationship with the Finns Party.
Sammallahti responded to Tuomioja in a post on X.
“For Erkki’s information: unlike during the YYA era, those of us in the new generation of National Coalition Party ‘NATO hawks’ will not be intimidated into silence by attempts to shame us,” Sammallahti wrote.
His reference was to the period when Finland’s foreign policy was heavily shaped by its relationship with the Soviet Union under the Finnish-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, known in Finland by the abbreviation YYA.
The National Coalition Party also spent a prolonged period outside government between 1966 and 1987. Soviet attitudes towards the party played a significant role in questions surrounding its eligibility to govern, as Moscow regarded it as excessively pro-Western.
Sammallahti then sharpened his criticism.
“I also see no need whatsoever to cooperate with communist fellow travellers or bootlickers of eastern dictatorships.”
The remarks came in response to a Facebook post by Tuomioja, a long-serving Social Democratic politician and former Finnish foreign minister. Tuomioja’s own political career stretches back to the YYA era: he was first elected to Parliament in 1970.
In his post, Tuomioja listed a number of prominent National Coalition Party politicians with whom he said he had maintained constructive cooperation over the years despite ideological differences and political disagreements.
They included Heikki S. von Hertzen, Harri Holkeri, Ilkka Kanerva, Sauli Niinistö, Pertti Salolainen and Ilkka Suominen.
Veteran Social Democrat criticises party’s current direction
Erkki Tuomioja asked whether the National Coalition politicians he named would still have a place in a party that, in his view, is now competing with the Finns Party.
He argued that figures such as “the Kalevas and Sammallahtis” now shape the National Coalition Party’s approach to issues including immigration policy and fundamental human rights.
He was also referring to MP Atte Kaleva, who has advocated a stricter approach to immigration and has played a leading role in drafting the party’s immigration policy.
Tuomioja concluded by saying that the alternatives facing Finland after the next election are becoming “exceptionally clear.”