During question hour with YLE Radio Suomi on Sunday, Katainen said that a solution is being sought to enable Finland to participate in the ESM without violating the constitution.

Last week, a Finnish parliamentary committee ruled that it would be unconstitutional for Finland to accept a change in ESM’s voting rules to allow for decisions to be made by a majority of 85 percent. Finland is the only eurozone state rejecting this change.

Katainen said that it is truly important for Finland to take part in the permanent bailout fund.

“We will benefit from it because we will be able to monitor the financial policies of other countries to see whether they are sustainable,” he noted.

Potential advantages

The premier said that the ESM would facilitate preventing a repeat of the current situation, where some countries had conducted poor fiscal policies for years and other countries, including Finland, then had to rescue them.

Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen has previously said that Finland has only two options. Either Finland’s demand about rejecting the supermajority rule in ESM decisions is fulfilled, or Finland cannot participate in the fund at all.

According to Katainen, however, Finland as well could gain from the fact that a single state would be unable to block important decisions.