Minna Arve (born 1974) is a Finnish politician who serves as the mayor of

Turku Turku ( ; ; , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the Aura River (Finland), River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately , while t ...

. Since August 2021 the post of the mayor became an elected office instead of a hired position. She represents the

National Coalition Party The National Coalition Party (NCP; , Kok; , Saml) is a liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative List of political parties in Finland, political party in Finland. It is the current governing political party of Finland. Founded in 1918, the ...

Education

Arve first studied to become a

nurse Nursing is a health care profession that "integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alle ...

and graduated in 1996. She worked as a nurse before working for a medical company and writing her thesis

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

at the

Turku School of Economics Turku School of Economics ( Finnish ''Turun kauppakorkeakoulu'') is a unit of the University of Turku located in Turku, Finland. It was established as an independent higher education business school in 1950, until it was acquired by the state in 1 ...

and earned her master's degree in Marketing in 2004. In addition to her mother tongue, Finnish, Arve also knows English, Swedish, French and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Political career

Arve joined the NCP in 1994. Between 2010 and 2014 Arve was the chair of the city council of Turku. She has worked as the party's general secretary and was elected to the post in 2014. Arve was first elected into the city council of Turku in 2004. She has been reelected ever since. In 2017 the city council chose her as the town manager of Turku when her predecessor Aleksi Randell became the CEO of the Finnish construction industry's interest organisation. Next year '' Kuntalehti'', a Finnish magazine on municipal politics, published a comparison of 40 municipal manager's salaries, which placed Arve on the top with gross monthly income of 15,311 euros. In the 2021 municipal election, where she ran as her party's mayoral candidate, Arve got 1510 votes, third most in her party after MPs

Petteri Orpo Antti Petteri Orpo (; born 3 November 1969) is a Finland, Finnish politician currently serving as the prime minister of Finland since 2023 and as the leader of the National Coalition Party since 2016. He briefly served as speaker of the Parliame ...

and

Ilkka Kanerva Ilkka Armas Mikael Kanerva (28 January 1948 – 14 April 2022) was a Finnish politician and a member of the Parliament of Finland. He was born in Lokalahti, now a part of Uusikaupunki in Southwest Finland. He was the Minister for Foreign Affairs ...

Political position

According to VAA published by Yle in 2021, Arve said that she is for

needle exchange A needle and syringe programme (NSP), also known as needle exchange program (NEP), is a social service that allows injection drug users (IDUs) to obtain clean and unused hypodermic needles and associated paraphernalia at little or no cost. It i ...

for the drug users in Turku, offering free protection to people under 25, and having a

pride flag A pride flag is any flag that represents a segment or part of the LGBTQ community. ''Pride'' in this case refers to the notion of LGBTQ pride. The terms ''LGBTQ flag'' and ''queer flag'' are often used interchangeably. Pride flags can represen ...

in public buildings. As Arve became the general secretary of NCP (Oct2014 to Jan2016) she described the party as a

big tent A big tent party, or catch-all party, is a political party having members covering a broad spectrum of beliefs. This is in contrast to other kinds of parties, which defend a determined ideology, seek voters who adhere to that ideology, and att ...

with values. In March 2022, Arve courted controversy when upholding the banning of a Ukrainian flag being flown near the Russian consulate in Turku in protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arve, Minna 20th-century Finnish women politicians 21st-century Finnish women politicians 1974 births Living people National Coalition Party politicians Politicians from Turku Women mayors of places in Finland