ABSTRACT
This chapter presents Finland, a Nordic member state of the European Union (EU), and a net contributor to the EU budget. The chapter starts with a general introduction to Finland and the country’s path to EU membership. It further gives a compact overview of Finland’s political system and key figures on its population and economy. The chapter continues with key highlights of political and public debates in Finland about European integration. The substantive third section of the chapter outlines the common patterns that emerged in the focus group discussions in Finland, particularly across the scenarios presented to the participants and also between and within the three sociodemographic groups. The findings show that, overall, the Finnish participants felt confident about their country’s development and expressed pride in its contribution to the EU. At the same time, they questioned if currently there was a fair balance of contributions from some other EU member states and drew clear lines when their support for transnational solidarity could become limited.
