Finland's government, led by Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (NCP), has appointed a working group to help tackle racism and discrimination in the country.
The group has been tasked with providing concrete steps on how the government can better promote equality in Finland, and its creation comes in the wake of a series of scandals in recent weeks involving the past behaviour of ministers in PM Orpo's recently-formed, right-wing government.
The working group's term began on Monday and will continue until the end of August.
The results expected from the group's work include finding strategies to promote anti-racism efforts both in Finland and abroad.
The group will be headed by PM Orpo's State Secretary Risto Artjoki, and will include the state secretaries from the three other coalition parties, Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo (Finns), Mikaela Nylander (SPP) and Päivi Nerg (CD), as well as the heads of other ministries.
The members of the working group will undertake the tasks as official duties and no separate salaries or bonuses will be paid, a government press release stated.
Citing government sources, newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported that setting up the working group was an effort to force the Finns Party to commit to eradicating racism, as part of the "zero tolerance" policy Orpo promised in the fallout of finance minister Riikka Purra's racist and violent blog comments.
