Speaking on Yle’s Aamu-tv breakfast programme, Haglund said that it was natural for the government to distribute the responsibilities of the two leaderless ministries between the largest parties.
"It wouldn’t be worthwhile to distribute two ministerial roles among too many people. It wouldn’t be very wise because then the tasks would become fragmented," he said to Yle.
However Haglund said he believed that more than two people would take on the responsibility of running the sport and culture and transportation ministries. The minister said that Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen and Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen are currently considering the matter.
Haglund pointed out that the National Coalition and the Social Democrats both have fewer ministers in their parliamentary groups than the Swedish People’s Party, but said that the talks on the division of labour are continuing.
Work would become fragmented
"When we began to look at how they might be split up we realised that the work would become fragmented. It's not necessarily sensible to have more than two ministers in the Education and Culture ministry," he pointed out, adding that three or four ministers would complicate ministerial work.
"The central issue is to reach agreement to reduce the number of ministers. That would be the SPP’s primary goal," Haglund declared.
The government announced Monday that the Social Democratic Party would take on responsibility for the Culture Ministry while the National Coalition would take over running the Transport Ministry.
Left Alliance Ministers Paavo Arhinmäki and Merja Kyllönen were officially relieved of their positions in a special presidential session Friday.
The Left ministers resigned from the government over what they saw as a disproportionate burden on the poor in the government’s austerity budget proposal.
