Åland's politics: an autonomy that two parliaments must agree to change

Why two parliaments must agree to change Åland's autonomy

Section 69 of the Act on the Autonomy of Åland, dated 16 August 1991, allows the act to be amended, repealed or made subject to exceptions only by consistent decisions of the Parliament of Finland and the Åland Parliament. In Helsinki the decision is taken by the procedure for amending the constitution. In Mariehamn it needs at least two thirds of the votes cast. World Autonomies, in its 2019 survey of the arrangement, records the Finnish side of that vote as a qualified majority of two thirds, after which the amendment goes to the Lagting and meets the same fraction a second time.

Its rank in Finnish law is debated. The Finnish constitution provides that the Åland Islands have self-government "in accordance with what is specifically stipulated in the Act on the Autonomy of the Åland Islands", and on Åland the constitution applies only in the parts the act does not cover. Suksi, cited by World Autonomies, gives the act a status comparable with the constitution, and with the law on acquiring land in Åland it is often described as a sui generis level of Finnish law. The Lagting treats the two alike: a change to either needs a qualified majority in its chamber, and Section 28 of the act adds that no state law touching a private person's right to own land or business property in Åland may enter into force there without the Lagting's consent.

The act in force is the third. The first, passed by the Finnish parliament in 1920, was refused by the islanders at first, and the question went to the League of Nations. The second dates from 1951. The present one was passed after almost twenty years of preparation, with the assent of the Åland Parliament, and took effect on 1 January 1993. The official translation of October 2004 lists amendments dated 31 December 1994, 12 July 1996, 28 January 2000 and 30 January 2004.

A second layer sits under the domestic one. The Council of the League of Nations decided on 24 June 1921 that the islands would stay under Finnish sovereignty with guarantees for their language and culture, and World Autonomies calls the autonomy doubly entrenched for that reason: in the Finnish constitutional order, and in the international settlement. The same survey reports the argument of Hannikainen and other international lawyers that Finland's decades of consistent practice since 1921 have made the arrangement binding customary international law.

A committee chaired by the former Finnish president Tarja Halonen had drafted a further revision, aimed at the centenary in 2022, and World Autonomies judged its passage uncertain at the end of 2018.

Who may vote for the Parliament of Åland

Section 9 of the act is short. Only a person with the right of domicile may take part in elections to the Åland Parliament and the municipal councils, and only such a person may be elected. The Lagting's own summary puts it the same way: Ålandic right of domicile is the precondition for the vote and for candidacy, and the voting age is 18.

The right is held in two ways. It passes by law to anyone who held it under the 1951 act when the present one took effect, and to a Finnish citizen under 18 living in Åland whose father or mother holds it. Everyone else applies. The Government of Åland grants it, and must do so unless there are persuasive reasons against, to a Finnish citizen who has taken up residence in Åland, has lived there without interruption for at least five years and is satisfactorily proficient in Swedish. An Act of Åland may relax the second and third conditions for a special reason. Losing Finnish citizenship means losing the right of domicile, and World Autonomies records that living outside Åland for more than five years ends it too.

World Autonomies describes the right as a form of regional citizenship, founded on the guarantees of the Åland Agreement of 1921, and it carries more than the vote. The restrictions in the Act on the Acquisition of Real Property in Åland of 3 January 1975 do not apply to a holder. An Act of Åland may limit the right of anyone without it to carry on a trade, though a resident's own business, run from no special premises and employing nobody beyond a spouse and minor children, stays open to all. A holder may serve in the pilotage or lighthouse services or in civilian administration in place of conscription, and is exempt until that service is organised; the exemption does not reach anyone who moved to Åland after the age of twelve. A passport issued in Åland carries the word "Åland" if the holder has the right of domicile.

The effect is an electorate narrower than the resident population. Citizens of Sweden cannot apply, because the right requires Finnish citizenship, and Statistics and Research Åland counted 10.7% of residents at the end of 2025 as born in Sweden. Birthplace is a different measure from citizenship, and the statistics on file do not state how many residents hold the right of domicile.

The municipal vote is wider. Section 67 lets an Act of Åland, passed by two thirds, extend municipal suffrage to Finnish citizens without the right of domicile and to citizens of Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and allows it for citizens of other states. After accession to the European Union the rules were changed so that residents without the right of domicile may vote in municipal elections after one year of residence. Lagting and municipal elections are held at the same time, so one polling day serves two electorates, and more residents may vote for their municipal council than for their parliament.

What the Lagting may legislate on its own

Section 18 sets out, in 27 numbered paragraphs, the fields in which the Åland Parliament legislates, and World Autonomies stresses that the power is exclusive there. It is not shared with the Parliament of Finland, and where the Lagting has passed no law of its own on a matter within its list, Finnish law does not step in to fill the gap. The list closes with a clause giving Åland "other matters deemed to be within the legislative power of Åland in accordance with the principles underlying this Act", which lawyers read as a grant of implied powers.

Section 27 sets out the matching list for the state in 42 paragraphs. The parliament's own page states that within its fields Åland functions almost as an independent state, with its own legislation and administration, and that in the remaining fields the laws of Finland apply in Åland as they do in the rest of the country.

The border between the two lists has hinges. Section 29 names matters, among them the population registers, banking and parts of social insurance, that the state may hand to Åland by an act passed with the Lagting's consent. A consentaneous decree, issued by the president with the agreement of the Government of Åland, moves administrative duties in either direction for a fixed period or until notice is given. Some state powers carry an Ålandic lock. A nuclear power plant may be built in Åland only with the consent of the Government of Åland, a decision to evacuate residents off the islands needs the same consent, and so does a new merchant shipping lane.

How Finland reviews each law the Lagting passes

Every Act of Åland travels to Helsinki before it can take effect. Section 19 sends the decision to the Ministry of Justice and to the Åland Delegation, which gives the ministry its opinion before the matter goes to the President of the Republic. After obtaining an opinion from the Supreme Court, the president may annul the act in full or in part, on either of two grounds: that the Lagting exceeded its legislative powers, or that the act relates to the internal or external security of the state. The annulment must come within four months of the day the ministry received the decision.

The Supreme Court's opinion is advisory, and World Autonomies records that presidents have followed it all the same. The opinions are written in Swedish, as Section 36 requires. The survey points out what the procedure amounts to in Finnish terms. On the mainland, the constitutionality of a bill is checked in advance by the Constitutional Law Committee of the Parliament of Finland, and there is no constitutional court to review a law afterwards. Ålandic laws are checked after passage, with a court's opinion in hand, where mainland bills are checked before it by a parliamentary committee.

A partial veto leaves the Government of Åland to decide, under an Act of Åland, whether the rest of the law enters into force.

Disputes between the two administrations go to the same court. Under Section 60, where Ålandic and state officials both claim an administrative function, the Supreme Court decides on the proposal of either side, after hearing the Åland Delegation.

How the Lagting forms and dismisses a government

The Lagting has 30 members elected every four years by secret, direct and proportional ballot, with seats allocated by the d'Hondt method. It elects a speaker and two deputy speakers by secret ballot, for one year at a time, and works through three standing committees: Law and Culture, Finance and Business, and Social and Environmental. An Autonomy Committee set up in the early 1970s advises on the constitutional position of Ålandic law and on relations with the European Union, and debates the government's annual report on autonomy before the full chamber does.

Forming a government begins with negotiations between the groups over a programme. The speaker then announces a candidate for head of government, normally the chair of the largest party. A candidate who wins a majority in an open ballot is appointed. If the first fails, a second is put forward by the same procedure, and if the second also fails an open election is held in which the most votes decide. The government may have up to eight members, and five members of the Lagting can start a vote of no confidence. The Politics of Åland article on Wikipedia dates parliamentarism, a government answerable to the chamber, as the custom from 1988.

Finland's president has a ceremonial role in the chamber and one power over it. Sessions are opened and closed by the president or, on the president's behalf, by the governor, and World Autonomies notes that the speeches at those openings are read on the islands as a measure of relations with the state. The president may also dissolve the Lagting and order an election, after consulting its speaker.

The parties are local. Until the late 1970s Ålandic politics turned more on individuals than on parties. The Lagting describes the political groups as independent of parties outside Åland, comparable in ideology to sister parties in Finland and Sweden. One of them, Future of Åland, argues for full independence. At the election of 2023, 205 candidates stood and Statistics and Research Åland counted 14,044 votes:

Ten of the 30 members elected in 2023 were women.

Who represents Finland on Åland

The state keeps its own office on the islands, the State Department of Åland, which took over in 2010 from the Åland State Provincial Office. At its head is the governor, who represents the Government of Finland in Åland and attends to state security. The office goes back to the act of 1920 as strengthened by the Guarantee Act of 1922, which makes it, in the words of World Autonomies, a result of the League of Nations decision.

The appointment is shared. The President of the Republic appoints the governor after agreeing on the choice with the speaker of the Lagting. If they cannot agree, the Lagting nominates five candidates and the president chooses among them. The speaker must also be heard before any decision on dismissing a governor.

The Åland Delegation is where the two sides meet as equals. The Council of State elects two members and the Lagting elects two, each with two deputies, under a chair who is the governor or another person the president appoints by agreement with the speaker. The Delegation has a quorum only when all its members are present, and it works in Swedish. It began under the arrangements of 1920 to 1922 to settle the tax equalisation, and it still does: it fixes the annual equalisation amount, the tax retribution, any extraordinary grant and any special subsidy. The president confirms each such decision unaltered within three months or sends it back for reconsideration.

How the islands pay for their autonomy

Finland collects the taxes. The state holds the general power to tax, and Åland legislates on municipal tax, an additional income tax for Åland and a provisional extra income tax, and trade and amusement taxes. What pays for self-government is a transfer back.

The 1991 text fixed the basis for equalisation at 0.45% of the state's income for the year, new state loans excluded. World Autonomies records that in 1991 the figure roughly matched Åland's share of the Finnish population, and that the Ålandic side later asked for it to be raised because the islands' population had grown. The Lagting's own summary gives the basis as 0.47% under the latest amendment of the act, adjusted as Åland's share of the Finnish population changes, and adds that the rate can now be changed by the Parliament of Finland with the Lagting's consent more simply than before. The Wikipedia article on Åland gives 0.5% of state revenue, which is the threshold the 1991 text sets for a separate payment.

That separate payment is tax retribution. Under the 1991 text, where income and property tax levied in Åland in a year exceeded 0.5% of the corresponding tax for the whole country, the excess went back to the islands; World Autonomies gives about €9 million paid back in 2016, and a delay of two years between the end of a fiscal year and any payment. The Lagting's current summary describes it as chiefly the state earned-income tax, capital income tax and corporate tax paid from Åland, returned in the amount paid.

The sums are large against the islands' budget. World Autonomies put the equalisation amount at €220 million in 2016, about three quarters of the Government of Åland's income. The Lagting's summary gives state transfers as just over 70% of the revenue distributed through its budget. In its economic review of autumn 2025, Statistics and Research Åland forecast the equalisation and tax retribution together at €332 million for 2025 and just over €352 million for 2026, after tax retribution for 2024 rose on lottery tax, higher capital income tax and high corporate tax.

The Lagting adopts the budget, and the state has no power to interfere with it. Section 44 asks the Lagting to aim for at least the same level of social benefits in Åland as elsewhere in Finland.

How Åland is heard in Helsinki and Brussels

Since 1948 Åland has formed a constituency of its own, electing one member of the Parliament of Finland, and it is a separate district in presidential elections as well. World Autonomies records that the member sits on the Constitutional Law Committee and by long practice attends the Grand Committee when it deals with European Union matters. Sweden has had a consulate on the islands since 1871.

Treaties need the Lagting. Under Section 59, a term of an international obligation that falls within Åland's competence enters into force on the islands only once the Lagting consents to the statute implementing it, and a term contrary to the act needs two thirds of the votes cast. Nordics.info records that this gave the Lagting a hand in Finland's accession to the European Union. Its approval was needed for Community law to apply on the islands, and the result was Protocol No. 2 to the accession treaty, and Ålandic voters approved membership in a separate referendum on 20 November 1994. The protocol lets Åland keep its restrictions on land, trade and political office as they stood on 1 January 1994, provided they are not extended and are applied without discrimination, and keeps the islands outside the EU's tax harmonisation. Statistics and Research Åland records that Åland joined the Union in 1995 and remains outside the EU tax union, and the Wikipedia article on Åland adds that customs duties apply to goods entering the islands.

Inside the Union, the amendments of 2004 wrote in the terms. The Government of Åland takes part in preparing Finland's national positions on matters within its powers, and where the two cannot agree on a matter within Åland's powers, the Government of Åland may ask for its own position to be declared when Finland presents its positions in the Union's institutions. Åland nominates one of Finland's members of the Committee of the Regions. Liability follows the same line. Under Section 59 d, where the Court of Justice fines Finland for a failure within Åland's powers, Åland owes the sanction to the state.

The Nordic Council has seated Åland since 1970, and World Autonomies records that the islands hold two seats in its assembly, the same number as Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Decisions of the Nordic Council of Ministers bind Åland only once it accedes to them under its own self-government rules. In 2017 the Ålandic politician Britt Lundberg became president of the Nordic Council, elected as part of the Åland delegation.