The ‘Swedish Assembly of Finland’ (Swedish: Svenska Finlands Folkting; Finnish: Suomenruotsalaiset kansankäräjät, often referred to as ‘Folktinget’ also in Finnish) is an official consultative parliament representing the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. Elections are held every four years, and candidates are nominated by the political parties which are either bilingual or Swedish-speaking. The assembly has 75 seats, where 70 are filled on the basis of municipal election results, and 5 are appointed by the Parliament of Åland (Swedish: Lagtinget). The assembly is a forum for political discussion on issues concerning Swedish speakers: it functions as an interest group for Swedish-speaking population, and it also engages in research on demographic issues and publishes information about the situation of the Swedish-speaking Finns. The latest chairpersons of the Swedish Assembly of Finland have been: Astrid Thors (2005 – 2007); Ulla-Maj Wideroos (2007); Anna-Maja Henriksson (2009); Christina Gestrin (2011); Thomas Blomqvist (2015); Sandra Bergqvist (2019). The Folketing cooperates with the Association of Municipalities’ Swedish unit in a working group called the VPS group (Vård På Svenska). The group is led by Folkting Speaker Sandra Bergqvist and consists of representatives from bilingual healthcare districts, municipalities, the third sector and the development sector. The group was convened in 2019 with the task of creating proposals to secure access to social and health care services in Swedish when the social and health care structures are reformed. The purpose was to jointly monitor the issues that are important to the bilingual regions of Finland, with a focus on securing the Swedish-speaking population’s right to social and health care services in their own language. When the Marin government submitted its healthcare reform proposal to the Riksdag, the working group decided to focus on the implementation of the reform, and how to best take linguistic rights into account in the preparation of the future welfare areas’ activities. The working group provides support for the preparation of the Swedish-language service and the bilingual administration as a whole. The working group especially supports the preparation of the two Swedish special tasks assigned to the welfare area of Southwest Finland (to coordinate the cooperation agreement between the bilingual welfare areas) and the welfare area of Western Nyland (to support the development of Swedish-language social and health care throughout the country). Read more on Folktinget.fi