Finland's National Coalition party confirmed Tuesday it had chosen Alexander Stubb, a member of the European Parliament since 2004, to replace Ilkka Kanerva as foreign minister, STT reports.

Jyrki Katainen, the finance minister and Conservative leader, had said earlier on Tuesday that Mr Kanerva could not carry on as foreign minister. The announcement came the day a magazine published the contents of a string of text messages sent by Mr Kanerva to an erotic dancer.

Mr Katainen said Mr Stubb was well versed in foreign and EU policy issues. He added the decision to choose Mr Stubb as Mr Kanerva's successor had been unanimous.

Mr Stubb, 40, has served as an aide to Romano Prodi, the previous head of the European commission, as well as in the Finnish government's EU secretariat and Finland's permanent representation to the European Union. With a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science, Mr Stubb is an EU scholar at the College of Europe in Bruges.

Mr Stubb is a supporter of full membership in Nato and has often made it clear that he does not understand Finland's official non-alignment policy. In addition, he is of the opinion that the Finnish president is not needed at EU summits.

He said at the news conference that cooperation with President Tarja Halonen, a frequent traveller to EU summits, would run smoothly.

Quickly adapting to his new role, Mr Stubb told reporters that the foreign minister represented the government's foreign policy line whereas one of his priorities as a Europarliamentarian had been to spark debate about Finnish Nato membership.

Mr Stubb underlined that being foreign minister required team work with the head of state.

"The foreign minister represents the government line and the government programme in cooperation with the president," he said.

"It goes without saying that the role of a Euro-MP and that of a foreign minister are two utterly different things."

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Gateway EUROPE reminds that Mr. Stubb was among the first members of EP to make a video message for the start of our campaign "Now - interacting with the European Parliament". You can watch the video here.