Finland Derides Crisis as Excuse for Eroding Sovereignty

Finland is losing patience with a Franco-German bid to erode rules protecting national sovereignty and warns more policy gyrations designed to prevent a euro-area default will alienate citizens across the union.

“We have a political crisis in Europe,” Jutta Urpilainen, Finland’s 36-year-old finance minister, said in an interview in Helsinki. “If we make significant decisions using the crisis as an excuse, for example reducing national sovereignty, that carries the risk of weakening the EU’s legitimacy. The risk is that people feel things are moving too fast.”