The new government spent a good long while pondering the number of quota refugees Finland should accept, and eventually settled on a policy of keeping the intake ‘at the level of recent years’.

That’s a deft sidestep of the Finns Party’s demand for a reduction, as the number was temporarily raised by 300 in each of the last two years. The question now is whether that temporary increase, to 1050, will be maintained.

Finns Party leader Timo Soini said when announcing the government programme that there’d be no reduction–but his MP and immigration critic Juho Eerola now says he’s expecting a drop. Caught in the middle, Interior minister Petteri Orpo is saying that the government could reduce numbers, but that may well be unlikely due to pressure from the European Union.

“It’s possible, but the refugee situation in Europe is now so difficult that it could be a challenge,” said Orpo. “The number will be within that range (750-1050) and I think that’s a good starting point.”

The EU has recommended that Finland take an extra 800 asylum seekers as a load-sharing measure, and would like Finland to raise the number of quota refugees to 1,300. EU Interior Ministers are due to decide on the matter in mid-June.

“We don’t support compulsion (of EU countries to accept refugees),” said Orpo. “But this is such an early stage that we can wait and see in peace how we draft our position.”

As southern EU states struggle to cope with flows of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, Orpo expects more demands for solidarity and transfers of asylum seekers northwards.

“The refugee situation fluctuates,” said Orpo. “It depends on what the security situation is in Europe and the neighbouring regions. This is the compromise we hit on during government negotiations.”