Just a few years ago Finland was top of the class in the Eurozone.
Suddenly the country is rock bottom together with Cyprus when it comes
to economic growth. This is not a political dream scenario for the
conservative parties the Center Party and the National Coalition Party
and the populist the Finns Party.
But Prime Minister Juha Sipilä is used to landing big, complex
projects. As a business leader in the IT sector he established a
reputation as an extremely efficient and focussed performer. His
business career also made him a multi-millionaire and the richest prime
minister in Finland’s history so far.
Sipilä has a corporate leader’s attitude to cooperation; everyone
should be pulling in the same direction and there is no space for solo
missions. In order to establish a joint vision the government will
spend the first month working in an open office.
Keeping them in check
This is a problem particularly for the less than coherent populist
party who’s party leader Timo Soini has his work cut out just keeping
his members in check. One of his new ministers, Jari Lindström, who is
Minister of Justice and Employment, has already launched a solo
initiative promising to bring back the obligation for companies to
contribute to the state pension system. Lindström, who was an
unemployed machine supervisor in the paper industry, explained that he
had not realised how important the word of a government minister
was.
He has also been confronted with the fact that he personally wants
to bring back capital punishment in Finland; private thoughts a
minister of justice should keep private.
Timo Soini himself will now have to balance the two contradictory
roles as Finland’s Foreign Minister, who negotiates in accordance with
the nation’s interest, and as a merciless EU critic. That paradox has
been noted abroad too. Sir Graham Watson, head of The Alliance of
Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), compares the appointment to
putting count Dracula in charge of a blood bank. Even the French
satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has mentioned Soini and the populists’
rise under the headline ”Helsinki moves away from Europe”.
Programming
Sipilä’s business-like approach is evident in other ways too. During
this spring’s government negotiations a new word entered the Finnish
vocabulary; iteration. Juha Sipilä, a trained engineer, borrowed the
term from the world of computer programmers in order to explain how the
government talks would carry on until they arrived at the desired goal.
It is known as being “in the loop”, a loop of activity, feedback and
decisions.
The government platform which was arrived at through this loop is
dominated by cuts to public services. The costs of nurseries,
elementary schools, higher education and research are being cut, along
with the overseas aid budget.
The country’s means-tested unemployment benefit will also be
lowered, while defence spending goes up. It could look like Finland’s
new government over the coming four years will move billions of euro
from nurseries, education and welfare to the armed forces in order to
gunboats and fighter jets.
“I have nothing against strengthening the armed forces in turbulent
times, but I don’t like the government’s way of taking money from
families, pensioners and people who are less well off,” says Jan
Sundberg, a professor in political science at the Helsinki
University.
He wonders what effect this will have on social cohesion, but takes
a ‘wait and see’ approach to what effect the government’s policies will
have in the coming four years. Except for one issue. Further
restrictions to Finland’s already minimal immigration numbers is seen
by the Finns Party sees one of the absolutely most important
issues.
“The risk is less immigration and that is not good for Finnish
society,” says Sundberg.
“We should have open immigration, lower the demands for learning
Finnish and open our western borders.”
Corporatism
Labour market reform is one of the most difficult issues. Finland is
an extremely corporatist country where the power balance between trade
unions, employers and government is cemented in blocks looking after
their own interests. As a result, political reforms have remained more
or less stagnant for more than ten years.
The Sipilä government is now talking about two different projects.
One is a so-called social contract between the social partners in late
summer. It is still not clear what this will entail but the aim is to
reduce labour costs. Several central industry leaders have already said
they will take a five percent pay cut. The other project is a
continuation of the employment and growth agreement which has already
been reached, with a central wage agreement for the next three
years.
The government added plans to lower the means-tested unemployment
benefit by 200 million euro next year, which had trade unions fuming.
Sipilä quickly delayed that decision in order to keep the peace.
The government platform also includes measures aimed at easing
employment protection and the rules for fixed term contracts which
legal expert say are unsustainable. While working hours are being
extended there is no reference to a better working life.
The noise of the past few weeks also highlights the fact that none
of the new government members have experience from negotiating major
social agreements. There is therefore a risk that the interest blocks
will remain as entrenched as ever in four years time when this
parliamentary term is over.
Weaker women’s rights
The Nordic Labour Journal has previously written about how the new
government’s core values are based on family, faith and country, with
an openly male and conservative profile. Women’s position in society is
clearly weaker after the election. Recently a group of 85 Finnish
university heads and researchers signed an open letter to Sipilä’s
government, criticising the government platform’s total lack of gender
equality measures.
“Women and female dominated trades pay an unreasonably large
proportion of the economic and human cost for the government’s new
measures,” they felt.
