:00:14. > :00:18.website. Time for HARDtalk. Europe's:
:00:19. > :00:23.Economic crisis has prompted a populist backlash against the
:00:23. > :00:30.powers-that-be. In Finland, the EU's prosperous northern outpost,
:00:30. > :00:33.the beneficiary has been my guest today, Timo Soini, leader of the
:00:33. > :00:38.euro-sceptic nationalist party known as the True Finns Party. He
:00:38. > :00:43.wants to see the eurozone dismantled, immigration is curved
:00:44. > :00:49.and traditional values restored. Critics have labelled the party
:00:49. > :00:59.xenophobic. Is this the Angling Products of European -- is this the
:00:59. > :01:13.
:01:13. > :01:21.angry politics of European disintegration?
:01:21. > :01:26.Timo Soini, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. In the last
:01:26. > :01:31.parliamentary elections in Finland in 2011, he won 19% of the vote
:01:31. > :01:34.partly because at the time, you were the voice of European
:01:34. > :01:41.apocalypse and Finnish people seemed to believe that the
:01:41. > :01:46.apocalypse was close. But you were wrong, weren't you? Know, I wasn't.
:01:46. > :01:52.We have now had a 20 EU Greece summits and the bail out has not
:01:52. > :02:02.worked. There is one more to come. Cyprus. Within weeks. The economics
:02:02. > :02:07.in the eurozone... The unemployment especially in Spain and Greece is
:02:07. > :02:12.awful. I did say apocalypse. He said in 2011 that Europe was
:02:12. > :02:17.suffering from economic gangrene of insolvency. Like a doctor, you said
:02:17. > :02:22.we must amputate or we risk poisoning the whole body. Europe
:02:22. > :02:28.still has all of its limbs inside the eurozone and it isn't dead.
:02:28. > :02:33.is a dead but it's in bad shape. If you are pouring money in every six-
:02:33. > :02:39.month of once in a year, you will get along for a time. Now the
:02:39. > :02:44.Finnish taxpayers responsibilities are nearly 90 billion euros and if
:02:44. > :02:50.the crisis materialises and I think in Greece there are 10 million
:02:50. > :02:56.people and the debt is 330 billion, there will be a haircut. There will
:02:56. > :02:59.be a write-down of debt. And then...? There has already been a
:02:59. > :03:03.haircut in Greece and what we have seen is that after the nadir of
:03:03. > :03:07.this crisis, pretty much when that finish election was and when you
:03:07. > :03:11.were at the height of your political powers, what we have seen
:03:11. > :03:14.is slow return of confidence. We have had Mario Draghi in the
:03:14. > :03:18.European Central Bank saying they will do what it takes to insure the
:03:19. > :03:25.euros and sticks together. And we have seen, for example, investor
:03:25. > :03:32.confidence in Spanish bonds, Irish bonds, beginning to pick up.
:03:32. > :03:37.Spain, unemployment is 26%. The youth unemployment is 50%. Nobody
:03:37. > :03:42.disputes it is bad. The question is - is the eurozone on the verge of
:03:42. > :03:50.collapse? It is in a serious danger anyway. If they were to play within
:03:50. > :03:54.their own rules, the financial aid and the bail outs are actually
:03:54. > :04:00.forbidden between the countries. Isn't it the truth that from your
:04:00. > :04:06.political perspective, you actually embraced the idea of eurozone
:04:06. > :04:10.collapse? You hoped that this common currency would fail and you
:04:10. > :04:16.still desperately need it to file for your own political purposes?
:04:16. > :04:19.That is not true. I did not want England to join the eurozone but we
:04:19. > :04:23.were not given a referendum. They were given a referendum in Denmark
:04:23. > :04:31.and Sweden and they did not participate and they are doing find
:04:31. > :04:35.outside the eurozone. My main concern is that the industry and
:04:35. > :04:40.competitiveness of England. We are still a AAA rated country and we
:04:40. > :04:45.are doing partly OK. -- the competitiveness of the land.
:04:45. > :04:49.have been very good, available the rules. You are absolutely fitting
:04:49. > :04:53.into the model, the template for what they could eurozone economy
:04:53. > :04:59.should be doing. Therefore, in many ways, and the figures suggest this
:04:59. > :05:04.is the case among many people, the eurozone has worked for fin land.
:05:04. > :05:09.Yes but Finnish people are very critical of the bail out. 62% of
:05:09. > :05:13.Finnish people resist the bail out. We have talked about that time in
:05:13. > :05:17.2011 when things looked really bad. I am sure you, like me, have been
:05:18. > :05:24.reading the most recent polls. Your own party numbers are down
:05:24. > :05:30.significantly. They are not. The latest poll was 17.7 %. But you had
:05:30. > :05:35.19%. There is a margin of error. But never mind the polls, the real
:05:35. > :05:41.results of real elections. You came fourth in the presidential election.
:05:41. > :05:45.You got a 9% of the vote. You are not doing as well as you were.
:05:45. > :05:54.are doing better than ever. That is a very strange way of interpreting
:05:54. > :06:02.the real decisions by real voters. 3.4% was my result in the
:06:02. > :06:11.presidential election in 2006. In 2012, I got 9.4%. In the municipal
:06:11. > :06:17.elections in 2008, we got 5.4%. Now we have 12.4 %. We used to have 440
:06:17. > :06:22.city councillors. Now we have 1195. I would say that this is going
:06:22. > :06:26.forward, not backward. Let us be simple about this. Is your message
:06:26. > :06:33.to the Finnish people that England can only thrive not just outside
:06:33. > :06:38.the eurozone but outside the EU or together? -- that your country can
:06:38. > :06:43.only thrive not just outside the eurozone but outside the EU all
:06:43. > :06:48.together? I am a realistic person. I was very happy when David Cameron
:06:48. > :06:54.said that the treaty should be renegotiated. I support that poorly.
:06:55. > :07:01.I would like all of us in Scandinavia, Iceland, Norway, to
:07:01. > :07:08.have stayed outside the euro. Denmark and Sweden are inside the
:07:08. > :07:12.EU but not the euro. Finland is in both. You want a referendum in your
:07:12. > :07:15.country on membership. You are quoting David Cameron. What he has
:07:15. > :07:21.promised his and in or out referendum. After the renegotiation
:07:21. > :07:28.of the treaty. If the result is good, we will stay in. If it is bad,
:07:28. > :07:34.we can leave. But before he spoke, everybody would have said you were
:07:34. > :07:38.out of your mind, that it is not possible to negotiate anything. But,
:07:38. > :07:42.no, it is possible. Looking at a polling among business people and
:07:42. > :07:46.the anecdotal evidence among business people in Finland, I see
:07:46. > :07:51.no support for your contention that the Finnish economy would be doing
:07:51. > :07:55.better were it not in the eurozone or the two. Let me point to one.
:07:55. > :08:00.One businessman who was recently interviewed by a guest Eagle
:08:00. > :08:03.magazine. He says England is a small country with big neighbours.
:08:03. > :08:07.No-one in this country would think about breaking up the eurozone or
:08:07. > :08:13.withdrawing from it. We live in this country from our exports and
:08:13. > :08:20.we would not stand a chance without the euro. Yes, that is the official
:08:20. > :08:24.trees. But you can also have a private truth. My country is a very
:08:24. > :08:34.small country. There is easily one truth at a time. When we went into
:08:34. > :08:35.
:08:35. > :08:40.the euro, many industries said this would be risky for us. For example,
:08:40. > :08:45.we have lost our competitiveness against Sweden because they have a
:08:45. > :08:49.floating currency and we do not. Right. But I come back to the most
:08:49. > :08:54.basic point of all, which is that when we look around Europe, your
:08:54. > :08:59.country is prosperous, you would not argue with that? Your country's
:08:59. > :09:03.trade is predominantly done within the EU. And it seems to me in a
:09:03. > :09:08.country with 5.4 million people, the message you are trying to sell
:09:08. > :09:14.is that you can only in the end fulfil our destiny outside of the
:09:14. > :09:17.EU. That is a difficult political message to sell. No, I am only
:09:17. > :09:21.selling what I am thinking and what the people of my party are
:09:21. > :09:27.believing in. But of course the Finnish people have the final
:09:27. > :09:36.choice. For example, when we went to the EU, we thought that the
:09:36. > :09:40.rules were for everyone. That they were to be followed. For example,
:09:40. > :09:49.the growth and stability pact. First, it was violated by France
:09:49. > :09:53.and Germany. And then it was Spain, Greece and now we have bail outs.
:09:53. > :09:57.That is why it is no good. Interesting that you choose
:09:57. > :10:01.constantly to focus on the failings of the southern European nations.
:10:01. > :10:06.You have been accused of creating a new, de facto Berlin Wall division
:10:06. > :10:12.in Europe between north and south. And when some people in your party
:10:12. > :10:18.like your fellow minister says things like Greece's debt problems
:10:18. > :10:21.can only be solved by a military junta, as is traditional in Greece,
:10:21. > :10:28.there seems to be contemptuous tone towards southern Europe in your
:10:28. > :10:38.party in Finland, which many Europeans do not like. I have been
:10:38. > :10:42.with the Greek MEPs of my own group. And I get along very well with them.
:10:42. > :10:50.And they like your illusions to military juntas? I have never
:10:50. > :10:53.personally talk like that. But you know she did. What do you do? Did
:10:53. > :10:59.you punish him in any way? Did you discipline him for suggesting in
:10:59. > :11:03.such a manner that Greece should have some sort of military coup?
:11:03. > :11:08.said this was improper language and he went to see the Speaker of the
:11:08. > :11:12.house. He is still a member of your party, isn't he? Why shouldn't he
:11:12. > :11:15.be? We will talk about that in a moment, because he also has some
:11:15. > :11:24.interesting things to say about immigration and race, which you
:11:24. > :11:28.have chosen to ignore as well. should ask him for his opinions and
:11:28. > :11:33.asked me for my opinions. It is your opinions on him that I am
:11:33. > :11:38.interested in. We are not that close. But before we get there, I
:11:38. > :11:41.want to pick away one more time at your policy not just towards the
:11:41. > :11:49.eurozone and the fiscal situation but more generally in terms of your
:11:49. > :11:54.domestic economic policy. Your party seems to be committed to
:11:54. > :11:57.state intervention and as some people see it a backward-looking
:11:57. > :12:02.view of economic management that far from opening up Finland to the
:12:02. > :12:09.world would actually create a new layers of bureaucracy, which hardly
:12:09. > :12:13.seems to be conducive to wealth. True Finns Party is for small
:12:13. > :12:22.business people. Many of our support -- much of our support
:12:22. > :12:27.comes from small businessmen. But for example, state intervention, I
:12:27. > :12:37.think that you have read about the docks situation. Building the big
:12:37. > :12:38.
:12:38. > :12:42.ships. And with that, we lost the bargain to France. And there was a
:12:42. > :12:48.kind of capital of 50 million. If we had granted that -- if we had
:12:48. > :12:54.been granted that by the state, we would have got 20,000 men, yearly,
:12:54. > :12:58.in work guaranteed. I was not actually thinking of that but it
:12:58. > :13:04.will promise to support agriculture in the rural regions, to coin new
:13:04. > :13:07.money and get more government stake in industry and infrastructure
:13:07. > :13:12.investment. And to pay for all of this, presumably, increase personal
:13:12. > :13:16.and corporate taxes, raise capital gains tax, three Institute the
:13:17. > :13:24.wealth tax. Is this really an economic policy you believe will
:13:24. > :13:29.produce new growth? New growth comes only when it is profitable to
:13:29. > :13:34.were and we want to have the tax rate for the workers and small
:13:34. > :13:38.businessmen tolerable. Then, there should be big business he should be
:13:38. > :13:43.paying taxes as well but they can make all kinds of swindling to
:13:43. > :13:47.avoid taxes. That is something we want to get rid of. Economic
:13:47. > :13:51.populism, isn't it? It doesn't marry with anything that the EU
:13:51. > :13:55.Commission is saying or indeed the Conservative Party in the UK or in
:13:55. > :13:59.the... I cannot think of anybody else who argues that swingeing new
:13:59. > :14:04.heavy taxes and a massive government spending is actually
:14:04. > :14:08.going to get Europe out of its current mess. Our group has
:14:08. > :14:15.criticised the European leaders that they have been cutting too
:14:15. > :14:23.heavily. Now, when you cut the demand, you will have a low growth
:14:23. > :14:26.rate. What I believe in his small business. The best example is the
:14:26. > :14:36.people who are supporters of the True Finns Party. They have taken
:14:36. > :14:44.
:14:44. > :14:48.care of their own businesses. And Many of the problems of your
:14:48. > :14:55.country can put it at the door of the European Union but others can
:14:55. > :14:59.be put at the door of immigration. We come back to what one of your
:14:59. > :15:03.members calls the immigration catastrophe. Do you see it as an
:15:04. > :15:07.immigration catastrophe that has befallen Finland? I did not see it
:15:07. > :15:13.that way. It is very small numbers of people coming to Finland
:15:13. > :15:18.compared to other EU countries. Those people who do come must be
:15:18. > :15:22.welcomed. They must be taken care of. At the same level as the Finns.
:15:22. > :15:27.But you want few of them. Your party platform speaks of much
:15:27. > :15:32.smaller numbers of humanitarian Refugees. We have been saying that
:15:32. > :15:37.the water which was being given by international agreements, we take
:15:37. > :15:44.them badly. All EU citizens can move in and out freely as in every
:15:44. > :15:49.EU country. Some can buy her houses or cottages or whatever. When we
:15:49. > :15:54.are talking about the large amounts of people coming, we want to know
:15:54. > :15:59.whether there is a workplace or whether they can support themselves.
:15:59. > :16:04.Is there a strand of races and inside your party? No, I'm a
:16:04. > :16:07.Catholic Christian. By definition a cannot be a racist. I'm not sure
:16:07. > :16:12.that would convince everybody listening to this interview. I
:16:12. > :16:18.asked again, is there a strand of races and in your party? Know.
:16:18. > :16:27.Nobody is hated by a The Finns Party. There are one or two
:16:27. > :16:35.outbursts but we have 90% -- 19% of people voting for Ross. If there
:16:35. > :16:42.are some it individuals or MPs, they cannot personally be in charge.
:16:42. > :16:46.You're a leader. That is your job. (CROSSTALK). 39 MPs and you're
:16:46. > :16:51.saying that as leader, it is impossible to ensure that none of
:16:51. > :16:55.them ever come up with a racist statement. I never approve of any
:16:55. > :17:05.kind of races statement. We can go back through the record. Let us
:17:05. > :17:06.
:17:06. > :17:09.take a few. One of your MPs said -- used a word to describe a black
:17:09. > :17:14.people which is completely unacceptable and racist. What did
:17:14. > :17:20.you do? I said, don't use that kind of language. Why didn't she fire
:17:20. > :17:23.him? Why should I. If people use that kind of complete the
:17:23. > :17:28.derogatory word toward people of a different race, it suggests that
:17:28. > :17:32.they are racist. But he has not said that he is a racist and I do
:17:32. > :17:36.not believe that he is a racist. if you use that kind of
:17:36. > :17:42.inflammatory language but then denied it were racist, then that is
:17:42. > :17:48.OK? That is not OK. You should be improving your behaviour. He did
:17:48. > :17:52.not say once, did do not that if anyone in your party, especially an
:17:52. > :18:01.MP, were convicted of racist behaviour, they would be removed?
:18:01. > :18:09.Yes. This is for a particular case for one member who wrote a Facebook
:18:09. > :18:14.post five years ago, before he was a City Council, not even when he
:18:14. > :18:19.was a member parliament and has had negative publicity for five years.
:18:19. > :18:26.People will not know this case as well as use it let us explain. He
:18:26. > :18:29.referred the Prophet Muhammad as it had a far. He said that Islam was a
:18:29. > :18:34.paddock while religion. It went through the courts and one up in
:18:34. > :18:37.the Supreme Court. He was convicted. Let us the Court of this. He was
:18:37. > :18:43.convicted of ethnic agitation and bridging the sanctity of religion.
:18:43. > :18:51.You had promised that those convicted of such crimes would be
:18:51. > :18:56.removed from the party. What happened? I can put it slowly. He
:18:57. > :19:02.has been in purgatory for five years. I think that that is a bad
:19:02. > :19:11.punishment enough for him. I now think that he will know how bad it
:19:11. > :19:15.was written and he would never do it again. He broke a promise.
:19:15. > :19:18.said that I was not a person who could punish him any more after he
:19:18. > :19:24.had been constantly punished for five years. But you broke your
:19:24. > :19:29.promise. I said that I cannot punish a man more than that. So it
:19:29. > :19:32.is OK to break your promise? A very important promise. It was a signal
:19:32. > :19:40.to the Finnish people that despite all the criticism that you and your
:19:40. > :19:44.party face, you were committed to a non racist politics. Then he had a
:19:44. > :19:48.member, a senior member of your party aside from yourself, one of
:19:48. > :19:51.the most popular figures in your party is set yourself, who was
:19:51. > :19:58.convicted and two broken promise. That is up to the electorate to
:19:58. > :20:02.decide. There had been five years and he has been punished and he was
:20:02. > :20:09.the chair of the administrative committee of the Finnish Parliament.
:20:09. > :20:14.He lost that place. He was punished. Just to be clear about what your
:20:14. > :20:16.party is all about. He used to call yourself as the True Finns and
:20:16. > :20:23.married as coir sells The Finns Party. Am I correct in
:20:23. > :20:28.understanding as one of your leader his papers have said that you're
:20:28. > :20:31.best-known nationalists and proud of it. That you believe in the
:20:31. > :20:37.finish identity that has a specific heritage and that, to you, is
:20:37. > :20:42.something which must be preserved. In every nation, there is ethnic
:20:42. > :20:49.and historical heritage. Even in Britain, there is a Commonwealth
:20:49. > :20:59.and common values. It does not define a political party. Does it
:20:59. > :20:59.
:20:59. > :21:03.do find watch a political party is about? We are very proud of what
:21:03. > :21:10.the independence has been. After the winter war against Soviet
:21:10. > :21:17.occupation and things like that. Been land is open for everybody. --
:21:17. > :21:21.in mind. If someone is saying that we do not accept everybody and
:21:21. > :21:26.opposes human life and values, that is wrong. People are saying that
:21:26. > :21:30.the sort of politics you practice is not the politics of the open and
:21:30. > :21:35.tolerant Europe. Then look at your friends and alliances that you have
:21:35. > :21:38.in the European Parliament. For example one of your allies in that
:21:38. > :21:45.grouping is the Slovak National Party whose leader has described
:21:45. > :21:49.the minority Hungarian populations in his country as a cancer in the
:21:49. > :21:54.body of the nation. Has said of homosexuals that he has no problem
:21:54. > :22:00.with them as long as they remain in the shadows and have disgusting and
:22:00. > :22:05.the sexual orgies. Abbey is the sort of political allies you want?
:22:05. > :22:11.And give you an example. When we got a landslide victory, I was
:22:11. > :22:21.called in the Swedish press a plague. How does that go with
:22:21. > :22:22.
:22:22. > :22:31.Swedish value skim mark others that A man in your party was convicted
:22:31. > :22:38.of ethnic attacks. You know how painful those attacks are.
:22:38. > :22:41.(CROSSTALK). People in your party are still doing that sort of thing.
:22:41. > :22:50.You are speaking of a small minority in our party, not the
:22:50. > :22:54.majority. All of the Finnish people are very law-abiding people.
:22:54. > :22:58.final thought before we go. We began by taking a big picture if
:22:58. > :23:02.you would Europe. The EU has not collapsed. It is in serious trouble
:23:02. > :23:07.and Cyprus is going to be bailed out which is against the eurozone
:23:07. > :23:12.rules. My final thought is this - there is a lot of anger in Europe
:23:12. > :23:18.at the moment. People are angry with the status quo. D believe it
:23:19. > :23:25.will party and our allies across the EU can take power? That is what
:23:25. > :23:33.to have not succeeded in doing so far. I am now the City Council
:23:33. > :23:38.chair of my home city. It has the Nokia headquarters. We are in power
:23:38. > :23:45.in many local minister banalities. Why we are not in the government is
:23:45. > :23:49.because of this bail-out policy. I said to the Prime Minister but if
:23:49. > :23:56.you do not go to Brussels, send me as the Minister of Treasury and a
:23:56. > :23:59.war go and say, you can do your bile arts but we're not taking part.
:23:59. > :24:08.There is a chance that you have missed a moment of maximum
:24:08. > :24:13.opportunity. Everything is possible. When I began this party in 1995, we
:24:13. > :24:19.were outside the parliament for eight years. Now I have been in the