IN 2011 Finland broke a long habit and held an interesting election. The True Finns, a Eurosceptic party led by Timo Soini, a portly rabble-rouser with a fondness for Millwall, a minor London football team, came from nowhere to win 19% of the vote, shaking up Finland’s cosy political consensus and alerting Europe to a new generation of populist parties.

When Mr Soini withdrew from coalition talks over euro-zone policy, says an observer, he had “tears in his eyes”. But after four years in the wilderness he is seeing straight. On April 19th his party, now The Finns, came second in the Finnish election, taking 38 of the 200 seats in parliament. That is one fewer than last time, but Mr Soini may well join a coalition government led by Juha Sipila (pictured above), whose Centre Party took 49 seats.

That may seem odd. Greece is again in trouble. If its cash-strapped government survives until the end of June, it may need a third bail-out. The mood in Finland has not softened. Yet Mr Soini apparently has. Although he says Greece should be kicked out of the single currency, his zest for power seems stronger than his distaste for euro-zone rescues. Another bail-out will be a tough sell for the new parliament, but may no longer be a red line for Mr Soini. That says much for the moderating effects of the prospect of power.

In any case Greece did not dominate this election campaign in the way Portugal did in 2011. Mr Sipila, a telecoms millionaire and revivalist Lutheran who entered parliament four years ago, is focused on reviving Finland’s moribund economy, only just emerging from a three-year slump. He promises to bump growth up to 2% by 2019 and create 80,000 jobs, without explaining how. One essential must be restored labour competitiveness. Finnish wages were growing at positively Mediterranean levels, far outstripping those in Germany or Sweden, the countries to which Finland likes to compare itself. Another should be to increase immigration to boost the workforce, but that will trouble Mr Soini.

Should he join up with the Finns, Mr Sipila must also pick one of the other two big parties to secure a majority. His choice will shape the pace and composition of the fiscal austerity that lies ahead. A coalition with the Social Democrats may lead to slower consolidation than one with the centre-right National Coalition. But the influence will be marginal: all mainstream parties share an aversion to fiscal laxity.

More interesting will be Mr Sipila’s choice of finance minister. That post is typically awarded to the second-placed party, but Mr Soini, who is widely praised for his running of the parliamentary foreign-affairs committee in the past four years, looks a better fit for foreign minister. Alex Stubb, the outgoing prime minister from National Coalition, is one possibility. Another is the Centre Party’s Olli Rehn, who became the face of euro-zone austerity in his stint as Europe’s economics commissioner. These details will be worked out over the next month; Mr Sipila promises a government by mid-May. For Finland, such talks may seem reassuringly normal.