The Finnish attitude to the European Union (EU) and to Europeanisation is a mixture of a number of contradictory elements. Every political party has its own opinions of the EU, and the political colour of the cabinet has an impact on the government's official stances on the issue. The official opinion is formed in Parliament, where the Grand Committee, representing all parties, formulates the parliamentary will that does not necessarily need to coincide with the government's standpoints. Usually the Left Alliance and the Centre Party have been quite critical towards the EU, while the Social Democrats and the Conservatives have been more in favour. However, a great deal of political pragmatism rather than political puritanism characterises Finnish policy making (Kangas, 2007). A good example of this pragmatism is that the most EU-critical Centre Party was the leading party in the government (1991-95) that prepared the Finnish membership application.

In addition to these political factors, a few institutional factors affect Finnish attitudes to the EU. Traditionally, there has been a strong emphasis on public delivery of services and income maintenance in Finnish social policy. Since the underpinning motivation has been universalism, institutionalised solutions and equality, the role of various private individual or labour market-based solutions (like second pillar occupational benefits) has been marginal. However, we also find contradictory elements: although all major social benefits are legislated, they are not necessarily run by the public authorities or agencies, a situation in some cases resulting in some definitional problems in the EU context.

The European social model versus the Finnish model

Chronologically speaking, Finland has been a latecomer in the field of social policy (see, for example, Kangas and Palme, 2005). However, the extensive coverage of those reforms that established universal ‘national’ insurance schemes compensated for the chronological gap.

The explanation for this late-but-extensive developmental pattern lies in the peculiar interaction of structural factors (a huge rural population), political factors (a strong agrarian party and divided political Left) and a peculiar form of parliamentarianism in which a minority of one third could postpone the adoption of governmental bills in the next elections (Lane and Ersson, 2002). These strong minority rights provide the opponents of social reforms effective means of vetoing bills on social protection if these contradict their interests.