Finland’s government resigns over failed reform package
- Social and health legislation was also a decisive issue for the previous government of the Nordic nation
“Prime Minister Juha Sipila has submitted the resignation of the government to President of the Republic Sauli Niinisto,” Niinisto’s office said in an announcement made just five weeks before legislative elections scheduled for April 14.
“The president has accepted the government’s resignation and asked it to continue on a caretaker basis until a new government has been appointed.”
Sipila has since 2015 led a coalition made up of his Centre Party, the conservative National Coalition, and Blue Reform, a moderate faction spun off from the far right.
Sipila, a former businessman who earned millions as an IT entrepreneur before becoming prime minister in 2015, has made health and social reform one of his top priorities in office, seeing a shake-up as necessary to cut the ballooning costs of treating a rapidly ageing population.