Matti Vanhanen

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Matti Vanhanen

Prime Minister of Finland
Incumbent
Assumed office June 24, 2003
Preceded by	Anneli Jäätteenmäki

Born	November 4, 1955 Jyväskylä, Finland
Political party	Centre Party

Matti Taneli Vanhanen (born November 4, 1955, in Jyväskylä) is the current Prime Minister of Finland, Chairman of the Centre Party, and President of the EU.

1 Career
- 1.1 Presidential Candidate
2 Personality
3 Trivia
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Career

Vanhanen was born in Jyväskylä, the son of the academic Tatu Vanhanen, and Anni Tiihonen.

Vanhanen has a university education in political science, having graduated as a Master of Social Sciences in 1989. In his youth he was chair of the Centre Party Youth League from 1980 to 1983. He also served as a member of Espoo city council from 1981 to 1984. Vanhanen is a journalist by profession, having worked as an editor of local newspaper Kehäsanomat 1985–1988 and editor-in-chief 1988–1991.

Vanhanen was elected as a member of Finnish Parliament (Eduskunta) in 1991. As a member of Parliament he was interested in ecological issues. For instance, Vanhanen spoke against the building of a fifth nuclear power plant in 1992, at the same time as serving on the board of electricity corporation Fortum. He served on the Parliamentary Environment Committee 1991-1995, and was chair of the Parliamentary Grand Committee 2000-2001. He was vice chair of the Centre Party Parliamentary group 1994-2001, and Deputy Chairman of the Centre Party 2000-2003.

Another important topic for Vanhanen was Finland's foreign and security policy. As a specialist on the European Union he was a member of the European Union Constitutional Convention. There he criticized the president of the convention Giscard d'Estaing as authoritarian. Vanhanen has said [1] that he is unenthusiastic about European co-operation, and that he is an "EU pragmatist", so he may be considered an eurosceptic especially when compared to his EU-enthusiast predecessor Paavo Lipponen.

Vanhanen resigned from the Constitutional Convention in 2003 when he became Minister of Defense in the cabinet of Prime Minister Anneli Jäätteenmäki. After Jäätteenmäki's resignation, Vanhanen was elected Prime Minister.

As a politician, Vanhanen is considered to be part of the liberal wing of the old agrarian Central Party, along with the two other Party ministers from Uusimaa region. His government did cut top income tax rate from 35.5% to 33.5% in 2005 and 32.5% in 2006 along with corporate tax rate to 26% (former 29%) and capital gains to 28%. Vanhanen has said he is willing to continue tax cuts.

[edit] Presidential Candidate

As the Centre Party candidate, Vanhanen challenged President Tarja Halonen in the 2006 Finnish presidential election, but did not qualify for the runoff. He received 18.6% of the vote, coming third to the National Coalition party's Sauli Niinistö (24.1%) and Social Democrat and incumbent Tarja Halonen (46.3%). Vanhanen expressed his support for Niinistö in the runoff election against his coalition partner's candidate Halonen.

The presidential election, and cooperation between Central Party and National Coalition Party, proved to be a major strain in the government coalition between the Central Party and Social Democrats. The flashpoint came in March, when the Centre Party demanded national agricultural subsidies to cover farmers losses when Finnish exception in European Union Common Agricultural Policy was about to expire. At the end of the crisis Vanhanen told his parliamentary group that tax payers would cover ninety percent or about 100 million euros of losses.

[edit] Personality

Matti Vanhanen

Vanhanen has been characterised as uncharismatic and even boring, which he has attempted to turn to his advantage in tense political situations. Vanhanen is known for being teetotaler, saying that he doesn't like the taste of alcohol ^[1].

Vanhanen married Merja Vanhanen 1985. They have two children: Annastiina (born 1991) and Juhana (born 1994). Matti Vanhanen and Merja Vanhanen unexpectedly announced their divorce on 6 April 2005, which might have had political repercussions for the self-styled family man.

Later there were claims in the tabloid press of affairs during and after his marriage. Susan Kuronen was widely linked to Vanhanen ^[2] but their relationship broke down ^[3]

In a 2006 book commissioned for the presidential elections, Se on ihan Matti, Vanhanen compared the Finnish tabloid press to the KGB and Stasi, former Soviet Union and East German secret police agencies ^[4].

During the Asem 2006 meeting in Helsinki, French president Jaques Chirac described Vanhanen as "the sexiest man in Finland".^[5]

[edit] Trivia

Matti Vanhanen is 197 cm (6' 5.5") tall. He weighs 97 kg (213 lbs).
Matti Vanhanen is known for his teetotalism
Matti Vanhanen likes spaghetti and has also said that coca-cola and pizza is the best kind of food there is. ^{[citation needed]}
Vanhanen likes woodworking
Vanhanen has built two houses by himself
Vanhanen is left-handed [2]
His father is the controversial professor Tatu Vanhanen, co-author of IQ and the Wealth of Nations.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Preceded by: Anneli Jäätteenmäki	Prime Minister of Finland 2003-present	Succeeded by: (incumbent)
Preceded by: Jan-Erik Enestam	Minister of Defence (Finland) 2003	Succeeded by: Seppo Kääriäinen