Sunday’s Prime Minister’s interview hour was Stubb’s last as head of the current coalition government. Although Stubb’s National Coalition Party has been knocked into third place in opinion polls by the Social Democrats and the current voter favourite, the opposition Centre Party, Stubb says his party is still aiming for an election win.
However the PM said that the people will decide what kind of administration will take up office after the April election
The Prime Minister was asked about his party’s red-line issues in terms of forming a new post-election government.
“The first is that we would have the same view of the situation and that perspective should be based on forecasts by the Finance Ministry and the Bank of Finland. Perhaps the second question is how we do things,” Stubb declared.
“I believe we should always consider Finland’s best interests, the interests of the fatherland should come first and we should work together. This is one of our basic problems in politics; it occurs quite often because we have this very diverse coalition government that wants to go in different directions,” he added.
NCP prepared to cut up to six billion
The premier said that the NCP is prepared to increase the government’s austerity target to the six billion euros outlined by the Finance Ministry last week. The Ministry has proposed cutting central government spending by four billion euros and municipal outlays by another two billion by the year 2019.
“The goal is to begin those adjustments immediately during the next government’s term in office,” Stubb remarked.
Stubb did not rule out working with its current main government partner the Social Democrats to form the next administration -- in spite of open sniping on both sides over an inability to find common ground on major government reforms.
