Furthermore Wouter Brunia also spoke about nuclear energy, a hot topic in Finland. The government just proposed to allow a fifth nuclear power plant in Finland, whilst on the 26th of April a massive demonstration of more than 4000 people had been held in Helsingfors. Wouter Brunia: “nuclear energy has two major problems, safety and waste. Those problems are only to be solved on international (EU) level as both physical and political borders do not apply.”
Several interesting debates on motions and amendments to the political program took place. Topics such as education and the lack of qualified teachers have been discussed.
A new board has been elected:
President: Linda Lindholm (re-elected)
Secretary General: Christian Sjöstrand
Vice-President: Lotta Österberg (re-elected)
Vice-President: Andreas Back (newly elected)
On Sunday an interesting debate between Astrid Thors (Sfp/ELDR MEP) and Jan-Erik Enestam (current party leader and minister of defense), who both run for the party leadership of Sfp, took place. The event attracted some media. It was a realy good, sharp debate.
SU President Linda Lindholm in her speech: “
The political trend in Europe has taken a new direction. It seems impossible to me
to make a political speech today, without mentioning the unfortunate trend that we
right now are experiencing in different parts of Europe, most recently in France.
The proposal for a new political program for SU says that intolerant and
antidemocratic organizations should not get place in our society. This is a
statement that is becoming more and more urgent. Even in Finland we now have powers
who want to establish an intolerant and even racist party. Personally I can only
hope that they will not get any more sympathies than they have already got, and
that this trend on long term will lead to that the amount of people, who like SU
are supporting and working for tolerance will increase. To reach this, it is now
time for us to start thinking about what could be done and especially what could be
done better in our society, in order for the tolerance to increase.”
