JEF Finland’s 2026 Sleepyhead Day recognition goes to Petteri Orpo’s government for its failed advocacy on the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). The recognition is awarded annually to whoever has fallen particularly far behind in the EU debate.
The Orpo government represented Finland’s positions in this year’s MFF negotiations, in which member states set out their views on the EU’s multiannual financial framework for 2028–2034. Through these positions, Finland came out against the Union’s own resources, an expanded budget and joint debt, even as Europe’s competitiveness and defence are calling for extensive additional investment.
Finland’s official positions in the MFF negotiations stem heavily from the Orpo government’s programme, which takes a critical view of growing the EU budget. One argument put forward is that Finland’s “net contribution” to the EU should not rise alongside a growing budget. Basing Finland’s EU policy on this kind of net-payer thinking is unsustainable at a time when both Finns and Finland’s political leadership want the EU to do more. The benefits the EU provides to Finland are, on the whole, so extensive that dividing member states into “payers” and “recipients” makes little sense — it mainly plays into Eurosceptic rhetoric.
The Orpo government has named major themes — such as strengthening European defence and developing the Union’s competitiveness — as its key EU policy priorities, and these were also emphasised in the MFF proposal itself. At the same time, however, the government has taken a position opposing the creation of new EU own resources, increased joint debt, and a larger EU budget. Instead of these means, Finland’s positions in the MFF negotiations supported “increasing the flexibility of the financial framework” and “simplifying” funding. The positions put forward in the negotiations are thus sharply at odds with the ambitious hopes and goals the Orpo government has projected onto the EU.
Finland has become stuck in a narrow economic mindset in its MFF positions, one that resists advancing genuine reforms. The measures proposed in Mario Draghi’s report (2024) to boost competitiveness — such as increasing the EU’s own resources, harmonising taxation and expanding the budget — risk going unrealised because of brake-applying countries like Finland. By opposing the EU’s common sources of funding, the Orpo government is also jeopardising Finland’s own economic growth.
As part of its objectives for the 2023 parliamentary elections, JEF Finland called for a comprehensive increase and reform of the EU budget, for example by cutting back low-productivity, status-quo subsidies. “As the government’s term draws to a close, it’s easy to see that the Orpo government has stuck to its old, stagnant positions on EU funding. In the midst of global crises, we cannot keep demanding more from the Union while being unwilling to give it the tools and powers it needs to solve problems. A financially strong Union is a critical security investment for the future of the whole of Europe and for Finland’s economic growth.” comments JEF Finland’s President Pieta Päivänen.
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Pieta Päivänen, President
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