Finnish horse enthusiast is an EU tech front-runner

Henna Virkkunen, Finland’s European commissioner, could soon be saddling up for a hefty role at the European Union’s top echelons as the strongest contender for a tech and innovation portfolio.

The ardent horsewoman has built up solid experience on key tech legislation, such as the EU’s content-moderation rules, that could place her ahead in the jobs race. Finland is also eager to take action to boost Europe’s competitiveness, which could see her riding off with a reshaped research funding role.

It doesn’t hurt that Helsinki was one of the few EU capitals that instantly heeded Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s call for gender balance by putting forward a female candidate, increasing its chances of a good slot.

It’s all a long way from the Finnish heartlands, where Virkkunen described herself as a “horse girl” whose dream job as a 16-year-old was working in a horse stables. She paints herself as a hard worker, the child of entrepreneurs who was “brought up on porridge.”

Virkkunen, who studied journalism and co-owned a communications agency, has since spent most of her working life in politics, holding ministerial posts for education, public administration and transport for just over five years before she was elected to the European Parliament in 2014 where she won her third term in June.

Track record

Over the past decade, she has established a solid track record, gaining experience on several high-profile tech or innovation files that will be politically important in the coming years.

She followed the Digital Services Act for the center-right European People’s Party, helping to shape content moderation rules that have the EU clashing with several Big Tech giants. She also worked on several cybersecurity files and the EU’s flagship research program, Horizon Europe.

Finns think highly of her, even those on the other side of the political spectrum.

“Good, good,” said Finnish socialist lawmaker Maria Guzenina on Wednesday in response to reports that touted Virkkunen for a tech job. Guzenina lauded Virkkunen as “skillful in many fields.”

“If managed well, it could bring a lot of good to our country,” she added.

Finland has “very innovative” businesses that “would fit this portfolio of Henna perfectly,” she told POLITICO on the phone.

One industry representative familiar with Virkkunen and the Finnish government’s thinking told POLITICO that Virkkunen is indeed being positioned for a digital brief, with the transport brief as a backup option.

Virkkunen “might be what Europe should be looking for in its digital commissioner,” said Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director at the free-trade think tank ECIPE. “Broader thinking on an innovative and productive economy — and not blind to its shortcomings.”

For Finland, these topics are crucial as it has struggled to find new technological or industrial success since the decline of the once-great mobile phone manufacturer Nokia.

Innovation

Competitiveness is Finland’s “key priority,” alongside “deepening the single market, boosting innovations and mobilizing private capital,” the country’s representation to the EU said on Wednesday, pegged to a presentation on Mario Draghi’s recommendations of how Europe could try to gain ground against the United States or China.

Virkkunen herself echoed these points in a blog post on August 1, after Finland had nominated her as commissioner candidate.

“In Europe, too many structural factors are holding back competitiveness. Innovation and investment must be mobilised,” she wrote.

Innovation hasn’t been a prominent job in the last Commission despite the €95 billion research budget that it handles. It is light on policy and rarely makes headlines.

That could change. Von der Leyen has said innovation is a key asset to restoring Europe’s competitiveness. It will be necessary to put “research and innovation, science and technology at the centre of our economy,” she wrote in her political roadmap for the next term.

One scenario could see Virkkunen get innovation and tech policy, housed in the Commission’s digital affairs department, DG CONNECT.

That could see her in charge of a range of EU tech rulebooks governing disinformation, Big Tech market power and artificial intelligence.

She’s likely to play a different tune to current “digital enforcer,” EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, who has sparred on social media with X owner Elon Musk.

Virkkunen seems to prefer Instagram which she has filled with pictures of horses or of herself training for an Ironman contest.

She is “very diligent” in her work, argued the industry representative, and would be a “safe pair of hands” to whom von der Leyen could entrust the sensitive job of reining in tech misconduct.