EP185 · Society · first published 2023-03-31
The Christian Democrats Rise, Feet on the Ground | Sari Essayah | Negotiator 185
Sari Essayah, leader of the Christian Democrats, as the last guest before Finland's April 2023 election — on the morning Yle's final poll put her party past the Swedish People's Party. The episode's most durable observation is not the polling but the coalition arithmetic: when every other party has announced who it will not govern with, the one that has ruled nobody out becomes the party without which a government may not form. Also a sharp critique of the timing of Finnish EU influence — a position should be taken when a directive is still a glint in the Commission's eye — extending earnings-related unemployment benefit to everyone on a tapered basis, a defence of home care allowance resting on a comparison rarely made, and a language supplement for integration. Published 31 March 2023.
The Christian Democrats Rise, Feet on the Ground | Sari Essayah
Summary: In episode 185 Sami Miettinen interviews Sari Essayah, leader of the Christian Democrats, two days before Finland’s April 2023 parliamentary election. Published 31 March 2023.
A note on reading this. This is an election episode in which a party leader speaks in her own name two days before polling. The views are hers, campaign promises and forecasts are marked as forecasts here, and the article takes no position on who is right. Competing parties are not represented.
The coalition arithmetic, which is the episode’s most durable point
An electoral situation dates. Essayah’s observation about forming a government does not.
She notes that the Christian Democrats are in practice the only party not to have ruled anyone out in advance. From which follows a calculation:
As things stand it looks as though no government can be formed in this country without the Christian Democrats, because everybody else has announced who they will certainly not sit with.
Her reasoning is principled rather than tactical: no Finnish party has ever taken over 50 per cent, so a coalition always has to be built. She cites the President’s closing address to parliament, which had noted how hard the campaign rhetoric had become — and reminds listeners that the ability to cooperate is what matters when an unexpected crisis arrives, as the outgoing term had shown.
This is an argument whose value does not depend on one’s view of Christian Democrat policy. It is an observation about what declaring exclusions does to government formation.
Where the party sits on the compass
Miettinen says plainly that he dislikes the four-quadrant compass established in Finland. Essayah’s answer is more precise than usual.
The party is, she says, clearly conservative and on the right, but close to the centre line — a centre-right party, as Christian Democrats have positioned themselves across Europe. And she draws a practical conclusion from it:
Being close to the origin also means that a fairly large group of Finns places itself there.
In other words, sitting near the middle of the chart is not a compromise but a claim about reach.
The timing of EU influence: the best single point in the episode
This passage is worth reading even if the election holds no interest, because it concerns procedure rather than party position.
Essayah’s criticism is not primarily that Finland’s positions were wrong. It is that they came too late and too vaguely, and that Finland has communicated different messages towards the EU through several mouths — which improves neither credibility nor influence.
And then she frames the right timing in an image that sticks:
You should be moving so early that when a directive proposal is still just a glint in the Commission’s eye, Finland’s position is already being carried forward.
Her examples are the recovery fund, forest policy, the nature restoration regulation and the energy efficiency directive. On the latter she gives credit for parliament having managed a subsidiarity objection — which it did not manage on restoration — but still regards the direction as wrong.
She also criticises her own side of the aisle. Asked about Finnish MEPs’ voting, she notes that the National Coalition group split and that one of the Finns Party’s MEPs was absent from the vote altogether, although the party is usually critical on the issue. Her demand is consistency:
These are such important votes that it would be extremely good for the lines there to match those of the parties in the Finnish parliament.
Her substantive argument on the energy efficiency directive is geographical: improving energy efficiency in Spain or Italy is a different matter from Finland, where the building stock is already efficient — “we are not heating the outdoors here.” On restoration she raises both the constitutional protection of property and a cost to Finland in the region of a billion.
Tax: what the party will not promise
Her line here is unusually sharply bounded: no increases to the taxation of work and enterprise, and none to capital taxation.
Her particular concern is removing the dividend relief for unlisted companies, because that is where the small and medium-sized sector that employs people sits. She does not, however, defend the present system as it stands, which is worth noting:
The net wealth calculation rule can certainly be examined, I don’t deny that.
Her counter-argument is mobility: a company’s domicile can now be moved across the Gulf of Finland quickly, and Finland already has too little capital and too little investment.
She also corrects a recurring notion: talk of unlisted dividends being “tax-free” is misleading, because this is wealth that has already been taxed once.
She does not warm to a flat tax. Miettinen puts the Estonian model and concedes himself that it is a radical idea in Finland. Essayah’s reply is short and direct — “this party doesn’t quite bend to a flat tax, we do see the case for progression.” The disagreement stands, and it is worth marking here: interviewer and guest do not agree.
Earnings-related benefit: extend, do not cut
The most concrete policy content in the episode, and it differs from what one usually remembers of the campaign.
Essayah regards the whole debate as blocked into camps and proposes two changes that run in different directions:
1. Earnings-related benefit for everyone. The reasoning is arithmetic: the state already pays 95 per cent of it, and a large number of young people work in atypical employment where there is no cover. “Why on earth would it not be extended to everyone?”
2. Tapering. The party is not shortening the duration — she distinguishes her position explicitly from the National Coalition’s shortening model — but tapering the level. On her account, extension plus tapering on a four-step model would deliver 148 million to the state.
The broader frame is an incentivising basic security: minimum benefits — labour market subsidy, basic unemployment allowance, sickness allowance, parental allowance — combined into one whole and run through the same income register as wages and taxation, so that benefit responds to income smoothly rather than in jumps. Essayah says she sits on the committee reforming social security and regards the direction as right.
Home care allowance and a number rarely cited
Miettinen asks directly whether defending the home care allowance is a difficult position economically. Essayah’s answer contains the episode’s most surprising single claim:
The unemployment rate among childless men of the same age is higher than among the mothers who are on home care allowance. This is one of those things always passed over in these discussions — who should actually be prodded into working life.
Clarification. This is a comparison offered by Essayah; the article does not verify the figure, and the result depends on how the age group and labour force participation are defined.
Her actual solution, however, is not defending the allowance but shifting the cost: parenthood costs onto an insurance basis on the Swedish model, so that all employers contribute. Two reasons:
- it removes the hidden discrimination against young women in the labour market
- it is fair, because children exist for the whole of society
And from that follows her position of principle: once the cost no longer falls on one employer, policing who is at home can be dropped — the family decides. She adds that pay inequality belongs at the negotiating tables of the labour market organisations, not to something fixed “from people’s kitchen tables.”
Integration: a language supplement, cost-neutral
A concrete proposal whose mechanics repay careful reading, because it is deliberately two-directional.
The model: first reduce labour market subsidy for everyone, after which a language test lets you demonstrate competence and earn a language supplement back. On Essayah’s account this makes the reform cost-neutral while adding an incentive to learn the language. She grounds it in parliament’s audit committee report on integration and in the fact that lack of language skills is the single greatest cause of exclusion from the labour market — and notes that comparable incentives attached to social security exist in the other Nordics.
Agriculture as a security question
A passage that foreshadows Essayah’s later ministerial portfolio, and whose argument is about security of supply rather than rural policy.
Her description of the value chain is direct: retail has posted strong results and food industry good ones, but the producer can barely afford to produce. The remedy is legislative — a cost index in the food market act that accounts for rapid cost increases, because at present the costs land on the producer and the support packages have come late.
Rising interest rates hit young farmers hardest, she says, because they carry large investments and have bought out siblings’ shares. Her figure is stark: three farms a day are going under, and profitable farms are among them.
In a world like this Finland cannot leave its food supply in someone else’s hands.
Clarification. “Three farms a day” is a figure given by Essayah in the episode; the article does not verify it.
Regional policy through strengths
Essayah draws a distinction that separates her party’s position from the Centre Party tradition, and draws it herself:
The old-style Centre Party policy has been to pour money where things are going particularly badly. We start from the view that a region has its own strengths, and those are what you reinforce.
As instruments she names regional tiering of the electricity tax on the Swedish model — where northern Sweden pays a distinctly lower energy price, which she says has drawn manufacturing there — plus transport subsidies and a regional student loan deduction.
Taxing powers for the wellbeing services counties: the sharpest no
Miettinen floats the idea of the counties having their own taxing power, in the spirit of “no taxation without representation”. Essayah’s answer is the episode’s most emphatic:
No, absolutely not. That would be appalling. That really would send our tax rate shooting up.
But her reasoning is not only the rate: it is divergence. Where the population is ageing, shrinking and sicker, taxation would be heaviest — which would widen regional gaps further.
On repairing the health and social services reform she names three items: reform the funding model with prevention as the priority, adjust the funding coefficients so they do not penalise ageing and sicker regions, and bring the missing items — pay harmonisation and ICT costs — into the calculations.
On the cut to Kela reimbursements she sets out the sequence that is the core of her criticism: the cut was made in order to fund the nursing staff ratio — and when the ratio was then postponed, the cut stayed.
The standing of Christian conservatism
The closing section deals with the shift in the values climate over the term. Miettinen describes the term as having begun with strong criticism directed at Christian values, and judges the situation to have eased since.
This article does not repeat the characterisation made in the episode of an individual official; it is the interviewer’s opinion and adds nothing analytically.
Essayah’s own answer is a point of principle about the concept of tolerance:
If tolerance is understood to mean that you are tolerant when you think exactly as I think — well, that is defined rather narrowly.
She connects this to Finland then marking the centenary of freedom of religion, and names freedom of speech and of opinion as core values regardless of whose opinion is at issue. Her conclusion:
That narrows democracy for everyone, if anything does.
The final sprint
The episode ends on an image that is Essayah’s own: she is a world champion race walker, and the campaign’s last days are treated as a final sprint.
Miettinen asks whether you can sprint in race walking. The answer condenses the episode better than any manifesto:
You can. With good technique you can take a final sprint. It is exactly the same in politics.
And his follow-up — that both feet must not be off the ground as you cross the line — produces the answer that is also the episode’s title:
We are realists. We always keep at least one foot on the ground.
What stays with you
Three things.
Ruling people out is a coalition strategy with a price. Essayah’s observation that when everyone else excludes partners, the party that excludes nobody becomes indispensable is the logic of government formation rather than campaign talk — and it applies equally to other elections.
In EU influence, timing is substance. The image of a directive as “a glint in the Commission’s eye” is the episode’s best single formulation, and the target of the criticism is procedure: a position formed late and communicated through several mouths does not influence anything, whatever its content.
Extending earnings-related benefit while tapering it is genuinely a different proposal from cutting it. Essayah distinguishes her position explicitly from the National Coalition’s model, and the proposal — for everyone, but tapered — can be assessed independently of one’s view of the rest of her party’s politics.