Reino Paasilinna (5 December 1939 – 21 July 2022)[1] was a Finnish politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). He was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Finland, which is part of the Party of European Socialdemocrats. He was in the European Parliament from 1996 to 2009, and sat on the Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.
He was also a substitute for the Committee on Culture and Education, vice-chair of the delegation to the EU–Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, and a substitute for the delegation for relations with the countries of Central America.
Reino Paasilinna was born on Aunus, a ship on the Arctic Ocean, on the coast of Norway, where the Paasilinna family fled during the Winter War. His family is from Petsamo but they moved to Kittilä because the Soviet Union invaded Petsamo during the Winter War. The writers Erno, Mauri and Arto Paasilinna were his brothers.
He earned a Master's degree in social sciences (1974), a postgraduate degree in social sciences (1989) and a doctorate in social sciences (1995).