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Helsinki Edition  
October 1998    

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In the proposals for next years budget, the Finnish government proposes that press subsidies for non-political papers will be withdrawn. Instead, all this money will be directed to political parties.

This will mean that small Finnish newspapers, which are important for diverse opinions, may have to start depending on political parties again in order to survive.

At the moment next year's budget is being discussed in the Finnish parliament. The debate has been lively since the proposal was first revealed. This year 35 million marks was given to political parties for information purposes and 40 million marks to non-political newspapers. The idea of the proposal in next years budget in to give 70 million marks directly and only to political parties for their information purposes. Along with this big ideological reorientation the total amount will be decreased by five million marks. The press subsidies will be divided among parties according to how many seats each party possesses in the parliament.

If the parliament accepts the proposal, the losers in the deal will be the non-political newspapers. Parties with several newspapers will also face difficulties, for example the left wing parties. The only winners will be small parties and the conservatives. Some Swedish minority newspapers are highly dependent on subsidies, since they usually compete for advertising against one or two bigger Finnish newspapers in the same area. The Swedish non-political newspaper Äbo Underrättelser’s situation illustrates this very well. Last year it was subsidised by almost one million marks. Next year it might be necessary for the ÄU to be loyal to a party in order to survive.

In the main Swedish newspapers Hufvudstadsbladet (22.8), Bjorn Mansson wrote in his editorial: "papers that depend on the press subsidies might even be forced to act as mouth pieces for parties." Mansson also thinks that the whole project reflects the greed of Finnish political parties and it totally immoral. Hufvudstadsbladet has declared that it is not even thinkable to make the paper dependent on a party again.

The general opinion among the Finnish press is that parties will use the money for their own purposes. Money will probably come in useful since Finland has four upcoming elections within two years. The question could now be what will happen to quality, independence and multiplicity, which have constituted the foundation of Finnish papers. It could mean a step back to the days when support from political parties guaranteed the variety of opinions in the press.

Larissa Bruun