Finland’s new government had been in power for less than two weeks before entering into crisis. Vilhelm Junnila, the new minister of economic affairs, from the nationalist Finns Party, turned out to have had a history of far-right signaling, including jokes implying affinity toward Adolf Hitler. In a tight vote of confidence, he didn’t even get the support of all the new government’s ministers and resigned in disgrace a few days later.

Junnila is not the only controversial politician in his party. Many other Finns Party MPs have been convicted of ethnic agitation. The party’s ideological leader Jussi Halla-aho, now the speaker of the Parliament of Finland, once wrote about his desire for foreigners to rape several left-wing and liberal female politicians. The new finance minister — Finns Party leader Riikka Purra — got her start in politics by commenting on Halla-aho’s online guestbook in 2008, making a bevy of racist statements about immigrants.

Still, it is not the Finns that are in the driver’s seat. They are an accessory to this government, playing second fiddle to bring neoliberalism and austerity to a new level, a local variation of a model that is being replicated across Europe.