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Barents veteran wins in EU-election

Paavo Väyrynen.

Eurosceptic far-right groups gain support in EU-Barents, but the winner in the northernmost region of the EU is Paavo Väyrynen, Finland’s signature to the 1993 Kirkenes declaration.

Location

Far-right groups gain in Lapland, Norrbotten and Västerbotten in an election with increased voter turnout. 

The anti-immigration party Sweden Democrats quadrupled its support in both Norrbotten and Västerbotten in Sunday’s election to the European Parliament. 

Arjeplog, Sweden’s fourth largest municipality in size, but with less than 2,000 inhabitants, gave most vote to the Sweden Democrats, with 12,7 percent support. In the other end, 5,9 percent of the voters in Piteå gave their support to the party.

Sweden Democrats is a right wing populist and anti-immigration party with nationalist foundation. Compared with the 2009 European Parliament elections, the party has quadrupled its support, although the support in Norrbotten and Västerbotten is a few percent lower than the Swedish average. In the north, the tendency is higher support to the far-right party on the countryside than in the cities, shows the overview made by the Swedish elections authorities

The land-slide winner in northern Sweden is the Social Democratic Party with 41,1 percent support in Norrbotten and 33 percent support in Västerbotten. 

49 percent of the Swedes voted, up from 43,8 percent in the 2009 European Parliament elections. Västerbotten was over the Swedish average with 51,6 percent turnout, up from 44 percent in 2009. Norrbotten had 45,6 percent turnout, up from 39,2 in 2009. Sweden was somewhere in the middle of the scale in Europe, where Slovakians had a turnout of only 13 percent and Belgium had 90 percent.

The turnout for the election also increased in Lapland, the northernmost corner of the European Union. 37,1 percent turnout is up 1,2 percent from the 2009 elections. Utsjoki, the northernmost constituency in the entire EU, had Lapland’s highest turnout with 48,6 percent, according to YLE. In the other end, Kemi has 34,6 percent turnout. 

Unlike in many other countries in Western Europe where far-right parties gain support, the Finns Party got 1,1 percent less votes compared with the last European Parliament election five years ago. The party got 10,8 percent in Sunday’s election in Lapland. In Oulu, the Finns Party got 12,3 percent, up 1,4 percent.

The party, famous for being in opposition to the European Union, combines left-wing economic policies with conservative social values, socio-cultural authoritarianism, and ethnic nationalism.

The big winner of the elections in Lapland is Paavo Väyrynen (Centre Party). The popular Lapland-born politician got 25 percent of all votes. Paavo Väyrynen is also known for being Finland’s Foreign Minister at the time in 1993 when the Barents cooperation was established. Värynen’s signature represents Finland in the Kirkenes-declaration outlining the first inter-regional cooperation in Europe involving Russia.

In his speech in Kirkenes in January 2013, 20 years after the signing of the declaration, Väyrynen emphasized the power of the cooperation between the countries of Northern Europe. He also sees the policy of centralization pursued by Russia as a threat to cooperation. 

“Subregional cooperation in the Barents Euro-Arctic region is important. I feel sad that during the last years Russia’s and its regions’ participation in the cooperation has been weak, Paavo Väyrynen said, quoted by BarentsSaga, the newsletter of the International Barents Secretariat.”

Paavo Väyrynen had a seat in the European Parliament for three periods from 1995 to 2007.