Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 07/2009

Flags and hymns are not for Finns: An evaluation of the European elections in Finland before the fact

Aaretti Siitonen

May 2009

Finnish Institute for International Affairs

Abstract

Finland is to elect 13 representatives to the seventh European Parliament on 7 June 2009. In the last European elections in 2004, EU-wide voter turnout remained at 46%, the figure in Finland reaching only 41.1%. This was, however, a considerable improvement on the 1999 elections, where Finnish turnout was a meagre 31.4%.