In Finland German and French used to be the foreign languages what came to education and business (alongside Russian and Swedish) so the elder generation, including middle aged Finns, typically speak German or French (or Russian or Swedish) as their strongest foreign language. Of course there are elderly people who speak no foreign language but if you did study one, English just wasn't that important.
It has become important in Finland only rather recently and while the amount of students who choose something else as the first foreign language (A-language) has diminished a lot, about 5 percent of the students still choose to study something else than English as their A-language. Another 5+ percent (in 2012, the amount increases every year) are immigrants, who study Finnish as their A-language and often have no or poor English skills.
Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.
It has become important in Finland only rather recently and while the amount of students who choose something else as the first foreign language (A-language) has diminished a lot, about 5 percent of the students still choose to study something else than English as their A-language. Another 5+ percent (in 2012, the amount increases every year) are immigrants, who study Finnish as their A-language and often have no or poor English skills.