News of ex-prime minister Jyrki Katainen’s appointment as one of the EU’s six deputy commissioners gets widespread attention this morning. The new deputy commissioner position inserts a new level of management into the 28-member executive body, and Katainen will oversee employment, growth, investment and competition matters. That gives him “a big say over central economic policy”, according to the front-page headline of Tampere’s Aamulehti.
Sticking with economic news, Helsingin Sanomat’s top story is the arrival in Helsinki of four assessors from the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. They’ll spend three days in the capital speaking to economists, civil servants and politicians before publishing their annual analysis of Finland’s economic outlook later this autumn.
Ukrainian anger
Helsingin Sanomat also makes space on its front news page for diplomatic revelations that Finland, Italy and Austria were the countries who voiced opposition to imposing new EU sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis. Ambassadors from EU countries yesterday failed to agree on a timetable for tighter restrictions to come into force, despite Germany strongly pushing to begin the new measures as early as this week.
The issue gets widespread coverage this morning, with Ilta-Sanomat reporting a blistering condemnation by Ukraine’s former top foreign office civil servant. “I would never have imagined that Finland’s decisions are so driven by Russian money and political pressure,” Vasyl Filiptshuk fumed to the paper. “Finland has itself experienced Russian aggression in its own history and lost territory because of Russian military attacks.”
Meanwhile Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, who was yesterday revealed to have himself opposed extra sanctions during a cabinet meeting, issues a strong rebuttal to claims that Finland’s actions have sent a signal that Russia's behaviour is acceptable.
“This situation is not about trade interests. This is not about Finland’s image. This is about war and peace, and everybody should be clearly thinking about what the best way of bringing an end to this fighting is,” Tuomioja tells Ilta-Sanomat.
Patients at risk
Turun Sanomat leads with claims by the health regulator Valvira that triage practices at hospital accident and emergency departments are putting patients’ safety at risk.
The watchdog says it has become aware of “many cases” where patients turning up at hospitals have not been given access to a doctor, despite their being high risk. Instead, Valvira says, these cases were seen to by nursing staff.
The paper reports that the regulator is calling on the Health Ministry to issue clear guidelines to hospitals and health centres about how to recognise so-called “risk cases”, and to make sure they are seen by a doctor. High-risk groups include, for example, elderly patients, Turun Sanomat says.
However the paper also hears from a Turku senior physician who insists that nurses are highly trained, and that they can summon an acute specialist if necessary. “I don’t see that patient safety is being compromised,” she says.
