The Parliamentary Ombudsman's office has received six complaints regarding the granting of an internship to the son of President Alexander Stubb at the Finnish Institute for International Affairs (FIIA), according to newspaper Iltalehti.

Fifty-nine people applied for the internship, five of whom were called for interviews, with the institute selecting the president's 21-year-old son, Oliver Stubb, to receive the coveted post.

Iltalehti also reported on Monday that the FIIA changed their rules on traineeships to allow applications from UK universities two days after Oliver Stubb had enquired about the post.

The institute's director Hiski Haukkala had previously said that the rules had been changed before Stubb's email.

Haukkala told IL that his previous statements were mistaken, and it had been an oversight.

However, some people, including Emeritus Professor of Employment Law, Seppo Koskinen, have criticised the institute's decision. Last week he suggested there were grounds to suspect the FIIA had not used the same selection criteria for all applicants.

"Looking from the outside, this does not look good," Koskinen told Yle last week.

According to Iltalehti's article on Monday, it remained unclear whether the Ombudsman's office would handle the complaints or whether they would be forwarded to the Justice Chancellor's office, for example.

Documents previously obtained by newspaper Ilta-Sanomat suggested that other candidates who interviewed for the post were much more advanced in their studies than Oliver Stubb, and some of them also had work experience in the international politics field.

The institute's research programme has a special focus on Finnish foreign policy, northern European security and Nato.

Oliver Stubb has already started his internship at the FIIA. However, not all of the documents related to the selection process have been made public, with the institute saying that they contain personal information about the internship's applicants.

EDIT 1.7.2025: Updated to add a link to Iltalehti's story on the timing of FIIA's rule change, and the institute's statements about the decision.