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16-508: Esko Tapani Aho (born 20 May 1954) is a Finnish politician who was prime minister of Finland from 1991 to 1995. Aho was born in Veteli , Finland . Prior to attending university, he began a career in politics. From 1974 to 1979, he was chairman of the Finnish Centre Youth , many of whose previous chairmen had risen to high political positions. In 1978, he became a presidential elector,

32-576: A position he also held in 1982 and 1998. From 1979 to 1980, Aho was political secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1980 to 1983, he was a trade promoter for the municipality of Kannus. Aho studied at the University of Helsinki , graduating with a Master of Social Science degree in 1981. Since 2010 he has been a member of the board of the Skolkovo Innovation Center . Currently, he

48-634: A referendum was held two and a half years later. Aho's government also faced the deep economic depression of the early 1990s . Despite a steep rise in the national debt, the Aho government applied a stringent policy of austerity that made it unpopular. This partly caused its fall in the 1995 election and the Centre Party's eight-year period in the opposition. Aho had the nickname "Kennedy of Kannus" Kannus being his hometown) due to his streamlined and well coiffed habitus reminiscent of John F. Kennedy . Esko Aho lost

64-759: Is a visiting professor at Sciences Po , Paris. Aho was first elected to the Finnish Parliament (eduskunta) in 1983. He became chairman of the Centre Party in 1990, a position that he held until 2002. The party was at the time one of three major political parties in Finland. At 36 years of age, he was the youngest prime minister in Finnish history. Aho was the prime minister of a centre-right coalition government (Centre Party, National Coalition Party , Christian Democrats and Swedish People's Party ) from 1991 to 1995. He

80-511: Is best known for leading Finland into the European Union . Aho's own party, most of whose voters lived and live in rural areas, was the most opposed to EU membership among major parties. The greatest concern of these voters was the EU's effect on Finnish agriculture, but they were persuaded to support membership due to the prime minister's diplomacy. Finland applied for EU membership on 16 March 1992, and

96-559: Is both the 39th and the 40th prime minister. 1 year, 163 days Kes%C3%A4ranta The residence is owned by the Finnish Government through Senate Properties . The Meilahti neighborhood where Kesäranta is located is a zone of prohibited airspace . Kesäranta was built in 1873 as the summer villa of architect Frans Ludvig Calonius , under the Swedish name, Bjälbo . At the time of its construction, Meilahti lay outside

112-456: The 1930s, when Prime Minister Aimo Cajander adopted the practice of inviting ministers to Kesäranta to discuss and prepare matters to be handled in the Government plenary session on Thursday. A thorough renovation of the main building took place first in the 1950s and again in the 1980s. The main building was restored to look as it did in the beginning of the century, including the rebuilding of

128-599: The German general Rüdiger von der Goltz lived in Kesäranta briefly. Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim also used Kesäranta as an occasional residence during his term as Regent, or Protector of State , from 1918 to 1919. Since 1919, Kesäranta has served as the Prime Minister's official residence. In the summertime, the government holds its informal evening sessions at Kesäranta. These take place on Wednesday evenings and date back to

144-467: The bid for President of Finland to Tarja Halonen in 2000. He subsequently retired from active politics, initially in the form of a "sabbatical leave" of one year, during which he led a study group on the EU in the 2000 fall semester at Harvard University (where he was a resident fellow at the Institute of Politics). In the 2003 election he left parliament and retired from daily politics. He then served as

160-597: The boundaries of Helsinki. Initially, Kesäranta was a two-storey wooden villa, but in 1887, after it was acquired by Carl Robert Ignatius , a cashier at the Bank of Finland , the building was altered to the designs of Elia Heikel , who added a 20-metre tower and a bayside veranda to the building. In 1904, Kesäranta was purchased by the State to serve as the summer residence of the Governor-General of Finland . Architect Jac Ahrenberg

176-417: The current one, the longest lasting being the cabinet of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä , lasting 1,469 days. Before the 1980s, cabinets tended to be short lived; the president was the most important political figure, and he had the right to form a new cabinet whenever he wanted. From the 1980s onwards, cabinets have tended to serve full terms (although the prime minister changed midterm in a few cases, most of

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192-417: The other cabinet members have remained nearly unchanged) and the prime minister has become more powerful a figure than the president. Under the current constitution, the prime minister is chosen by the parliament and only formally appointed by the president. Finnish cabinets and prime ministers are numbered sequentially. A prime minister can serve as the head of multiple cabinets. For example, Matti Vanhanen

208-503: The president of the Finnish national innovation fund SITRA (the Finnish National Fund for Research and Development). In 2008, Aho's name was included in an opinion poll on possible presidential candidates, in which he ranked last. On 1 November 2008, Aho became Nokia 's executive vice president of corporate relations and responsibility and became a member of its executive board. At the time of his rise to prime minister , he

224-479: Was commissioned to make the necessary changes to the building and its furnishings. A new kitchen wing was attached to the main building and a glazed veranda was built on to the side of the building facing the sea. The villa served as the summer residence of Governor-Generals Obolenski, Gerhard, Boeckmann, and Seyn . Following Finland's declaration of its independence in 1917 and the Finnish Civil War in 1918,

240-662: Was the youngest head of government in Europe. Aho became a member of the board of directors of the Russian Sberbank in 2016. He resigned from the position in February 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine . List of prime ministers of Finland This is a list of prime ministers of Finland since the establishment of that office in 1917. In 1918, the Finnish Senate

256-605: Was transformed into the Finnish Government , and the position of vice-chairman of the economic division of the Senate was transformed into the position of prime minister . Kesäranta (in Swedish Villa Bjälbo), located in the Meilahti neighborhood of Helsinki , has been the official residence of the prime minister of Finland since 1919. Since its independence (declared on 6 December 1917), Finland has had 75 cabinets, including

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