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Finnish PM suggests reduction in overseas aid budget

Xinhua, March 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb suggested on Saturday that the country's overseas development cooperation budget should be reduced along with cutbacks in domestic societal safety expenditure.

"If we curtail our own society, then we should curb development cooperation as well," Stubb said in a television interview aired by Finnish national broadcaster Yle.

Stubb presented a list of suggested domestic cutbacks including freezing social benefits and a reduction in the duration of unemployment subsidies.

Finland had committed itself to attain the level spending 0.7 percent of the GNP on development cooperation in 2015. Stubb admitted that with the cutbacks the promised level would not be attained.

In 2014, Finnish public development cooperation expenditure stood at 1.1 billion euros (about 1.19 billion U.S. dollars), about 0.55 percent of the GNP. Actual assistance to developing countries amounted to 879 million euros; the rest covered administrative costs, contribution to the EU budget and reception of refugees in Finland.

On the domestic political scene, the populist True Finns have been vocal critics of the increase in development cooperation budget. (1 euro = 1.08 U.S. dollars) Endit