ABSTRACT
The strong de facto position of political party groups is naturally also reflected in the everyday organisation of parliamentary procedures and operations: for example, the party groups have their own offices in the parliamentary building; representative seating is ordered by political party; internal elections and various nominations inside the Eduskunta follow party lines; committee assignments and the chairperson nominations in the committees reflect the relative strength of each party; parliamentary party groups with more than one representative in a standing committee nominate one group trustee (ryhmyri) who reports to the party group and makes all politically relevant deals within the committee; group speeches in connection with the annual state budget deliberations and interpellation debates are allocated to the party groups in accordance with their size; the party groups receive money directly from the state budget; the preliminary stages of the formation of a new cabinet involve decisions of the party groups; and so on. The most important determinants of the control and use of power in the Eduskunta are thus the political parties.
