Islam’s growing presence poses a challenge for both Finland and Europe, estimates Prime Minister Juha Sipilä (Centre).
Sipilä commented on the issue while speaking to reporters at the Parliament House on Wednesday, underscoring that work remains to be done to both enhance the transparency of how religions are practised and improve the religious literacy of Finns.
“If these things are done in secret and away from the public eye, the outcome is a higher risk of radicalisation and extremist tendencies,” he stated, after making an announcement to the Parliament on the current EU agenda.
Sipilä has recently also warned against giving way to the temptation to “start resisting the influx of values that are foreign to us”.
“Islam’s presence challenges us to develop our religious literacy also in a wider sense,” he stated in his opening remarks at a seminar on the values and future of the European Union at the Finnish Parliament Annex on Tuesday. [Helsinki Times] Read more
