Wellington (dpa) – Finnish diplomats have asked New Zealand for an explanation after Wellington's third-ranked minister made derogatory comments in parliament about the Scandinavian country, officials said Monday. The Finnish embassy in Canberra, which is accredited to New Zealand, sent a “please explain” letter to the Foreign Ministry about the remarks made Wednesday by Gerry Brownlee, transport minister and the center-right government's Leader of the House of Representatives. Brownlee was attacking a set of economic policies suggested by opposition leader David Shearer, which he said aimed to make New Zealand “like Finland, which has worse unemployment than us, has less growth than us, can hardly feed the people who live there, has a terrible homicide rate, hardly educates their people and has no respect for women.” Finnish officials have objected on diplomatic and factual grounds. “The things that Minister Brownlee said about Finland, they weren't really nice things to hear and they don't really reflect Finnish reality,” the Finnish embassy's deputy head of mission, Juha Parikka, told Radio New Zealand on Monday. He said the remarks had caused a stir in Finland and the embassy had written to the foreign ministry. The ministry was not commenting. Brownlee was quoted at the weekend as saying his comments were “humorous and satirical” and a spokesman said he was not saying anything more on the issue. The New Zealand Herald website quoted him as saying there were “some aspects of Finland's economic policy that you'd have to say are admirable,” and the Finns should not have been offended. Finnish academic Merja Myllylahti, who teaches at the Auckland University of Technology, set up an “Educate Brownlee” group on Facebook and told Radio New Zealand that “Finland in 2010 had a female president and female prime minister – now we have a government where we have nine women and 10 men.” Fellow Finn Elina Vaisanen, of the New Zealand-Scandinavia Business Association in Auckland, dubbed the comments outrageous and said Brownlee could learn plenty from the Finnish economy. “You get a hell of a lot more money selling a Nokia than a couple of sheep,” she told the Herald. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/CzSHh Tags: Brownlee, Finland, New Zealand Section: Europe, Latest News, Oceana
