Timo Soini, the True Finns leader, is in a face-off with his fellow Finn, the EU's Olli Rehn.

It’s been a rough few weeks for Olli Rehn, the European commissioner in charge of economic affairs.

Last month, a Belgian minister lashed out at him for demanding the new government cut up to €2bn from its 2012 budget. Then he was forced to spend all of Monday night and Tuesday morning locked in a 14-hour session with eurozone finance ministers negotiating Greece’s bail-out. And today he had the unenviable task of announcing the eurozone would likely return to recession this year.

But if you really want to make the mild-mannered Finn angry, it appears you have to go another route: compare him Nicolay Bobrikov, the Russian general who ruled Finland in the early 20th century, before it gained independence. Read more