Jyrki Katainen, former prime minister of Finland, has succeeded in transferring his burden of leading Finland to a new man: Alexander Stubb, who is succeeding Katainen as head of the strongest party National Coalition Party and thus becomes automatically prime minister of Finland.

I have collected a few videos from YouTube to give an idea about what person the new prime minister might be. He is a very “unfinnish” Finn in a sense that he smiles a lot. He also moves quite a bit while he speaks. BUT: he is adapting. The first sign of his readjusting to Finland from EU politics was his new glasses. They used to be rimless and elegant, now he has adopted the Finnish  “dark-beam-across-the-nose-look” that always reminds me of the German  comedian Heinz Ehrhardt from the time of World War II. I really wonder why Finns, especially politicians, so proudly emphasize the fact that their (eye) sight is dwindling?

In addition, in his acceptance speech in Lahti,  Stubb is attempting to restrain his otherwise lively body language to the required Finnish minimum. Stubb speaks five languages (Finnish & Swedish, English, German and French) and he has some sense of humor, so may be, Finnish politics is going to be more interesting in the future.

This is his entrance speech as head of National Coalition Party. In Finnish, of course, but it gives an idea about the gravity of Finnish speech:  entrance speech

He definitely has a talent for standup comedy!

He does speak German very well  Humboldt Universität (minute 7:15), but prefers English and he admits to being a man in midlife crisis, which is why he does the Iron Man, so here you can watch him cycling (watch the date, it’s May, and the weather, it’s snowing).

Some time between this video and November 2013 he changed the style of his glasses. I really think he shouldn’t have done it:  European affairs

He is flexible. In this speech he deviates from his typical “3-point-speech” to a “5-point-speech” Nordic Business Forum.

And he fiercely defends the assets of Finland as can be seen in this discussion at the EU on Vodka business.

So, looking forward to what is coming next for Finland with a new prime minister.