Petteri Orpo


Antti Petteri Orpo is a Finnish politician and the chair of the National Coalition Party. Previously he served as Deputy Prime Minister of Finland, and Minister of Finance from 2016–2019, the Minister for Agriculture and Forestry 2014–2015 and Minister of Interior 2015–2016.

Political career

Minister of the Interior

During his tenure as Minister of the Interior, Orpo received support for his handling of the 2015 migration crisis from coalition partners in the anti-immigration Finns Party, as well as from opposition lawmakers.

Minister of Finance

In May 2016, Orpo announced that he would challenge the chair of the National Coalition Party and incumbent Minister of Finance Alexander Stubb in June's party conference. At the time, Orpo joined second-term parliamentarian Elina Lepomaki in seeking to replace Stubb. In contrast to polyglot and outspoken Stubb, Orpo was widely seen as a careful consensus-seeker with little experience of international politics. Orpo received 441,4 votes against Stubb's 361 and was thus elected as the new chair for the party. Orpo soon announced that he would take Stubb's seat as the Minister of Finance. He was officially appointed as the Minister of Finance on 22 June 2016.
In June 2017, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and Orpo announced said they could not cooperate with their parties’ third coalition partner, the Finns Party, anymore, citing differences in core values and in the immigration and EU policies. For both Sipilä and Orpo, at stake were major healthcare and local government reform, which were key to their plan to balance public finances.
In addition to his national political roles, Orpo co-chaired the EPP Economic and Financial Affairs Ministers Meeting, which gathers the center-right European People's Party ministers ahead of meetings of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council.

Opposition Politics

In December 2019 Orpo attempted a vote of no-confidence in the incumbent government. This would then cause new elections, which Orpo hoped on winning. The incumbent government was accused of malpractice in responding to problems in the labor market. Later, Prime Minister Antti Rinne resigned, and Kulmuni publicly refused to join the National Coalition Party's plan of premature elections.

Other activities

European Union organizations