---
title: "The Coalition Talks — Sami Miettinen and Elli Harju on Puheenaihe"
titleOriginal: "Politiikka: Hallitusneuvottelut (Sami Miettinen & Elli Harju) | Puheenaihe 348"
description: "Iltalehti political journalist Elli Harju and Sami Miettinen review Finland's 2023 coalition negotiations in their fifth week, before any programme has been published. Harju opens up the daily routine at Säätytalo and why the motive behind a leak must always be assessed; Miettinen argues that a government programme locks in too much in advance and that the Finnish convention of a single defeated bill bringing down a government should go. The best single observation is that the National Coalition chairs all eight reform tables and therefore writes the base papers. Recorded 2 June 2023."
format: "podcast"
show: "Puheenaihe"
episode: "348"
hosts: ["Leevi Leivo"]
date: 2023-06-04
duration: "51:46"
language: "fi"
original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQBXd1rHnlY
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/media/puheenaihe-348-the-coalition-talks/
---

# The Coalition Talks — Sami Miettinen and Elli Harju on Puheenaihe

## The media's role in the negotiations

Harju's description of the daily routine at Säätytalo is the most concrete part of the
episode. Every morning about an hour of live broadcast is made from the **doorstep**, which
the formateur Orpo and the other party leaders come to; there are press conferences in the
evenings. Beyond that, background conversations with negotiators are actively sought,
because few will reveal on the record what is coming out of the negotiating room.

Her own methodological rule is explicit: **the motive must always be assessed**. A leak may
serve to speed things up, to signal to voters, or to explain in advance ("we did try for
more"), and a party may want to signal dissatisfaction about the proportions of the cuts.
But if the information is significant and considered reliable, it is reported, because it
matters to convey to the public what official channels would rather not say.

She also raises the role of experts in public: when a representative of the employers'
confederation explains why work-based immigration must be increased, that prepares citizens
for a painful decision.

## Miettinen's claim: the programme is too detailed

Miettinen's running argument in the episode is procedural. The Finnish way of writing
government programmes is, he says, naive: decisions that will play out over four years are
locked in advance. His comparison is corporate strategy — there nobody micromanages measures
four years ahead; you take the broad lines and choose the means along the way.

Harju's answer is not disagreement but explanation. Orpo stressed building trust at the
start of the talks; if trust were strong, a detailed programme would not be needed. That the
programme is becoming meticulous precisely on climate and immigration tells you the trust is
not there — each party wants its own share staked out now.

Miettinen attaches a second normative claim to this: the Finnish fixation on all government
parties voting in favour, and a single defeated bill bringing down the government, is
incomprehensible. He regards it as welcome that in the previous term the trans law passed
with National Coalition votes and the EU package with opposition votes. Harju balances it:
government work was not especially durable either when the majority-government convention
was weaker — terms were short. Both land on the same point: voting bill by bill gives this
government room if a second EU joint-debt package arrives.

## Why no other government can come out of this parliament

Miettinen's forecast — and it is a **forecast**, not knowledge — rests on a simple count: no
other combination can be got out of this parliament, so this is also the government that
will form. A blue-red coalition fails because Marin will not form a government with the
National Coalition, and Lindtman's election would have to be waited for until autumn —
leaving a Belgian situation in which a government is awaited for half a year.

Harju adds two things. Marin is mentally on her way out, and it would be strange to see her
at Säätytalo as an outgoing leader. And Lindtman's aim is to be prime minister in four
years, so he does not want a government that cuts now — he has declined ministerial posts
so far. Leivo's question here is the sharpest in the episode: *if the Social Democrats want
to be the prime minister's party in four years, are they prepared for Finns to get four
years of National Coalition and Finns Party policy?* Harju's answer is honest: it is harsh,
but parties do calculate support — and reconciling the programmes would in any case be very
hard.

## A coherent economic right, a scattered values axis

Miettinen's reading of the coalition base is two-axis. On the x-axis, economics, it is
exceptionally coherent: he recalls nothing like it in Finland, not even Sipilä's government,
in which the Centre — in his characterisation now almost a left-wing party — was in charge.
On the y-axis, national conservatism versus green liberalism, the spread is very wide, and
that is where the trouble will come.

Harju disputes part of this. The Finns Party is not, in her view, an economic-right party in
that sense: Purra has spoken of **graduating** earnings-related benefit but not of cutting it
outright, and the differences of line are considerable. Miettinen sharpens his distinction:
on taxes the Finns Party is as far right as the National Coalition, and on transfers too they
want reductions — especially where the money goes to people other than their own, such as
development aid. Harju's counter concerns the electorate: the Finns Party's range is wider
than the National Coalition's, it contains an older labour-market strand, and social security
cuts are therefore not a simple matter for them.

Miettinen's answer is institutional: governments are formed by MPs, not by the party's
union-background figures, who are not MPs.

## Where the government will tear: climate and immigration

Both locate the same fault line. The price of fuel is a threshold issue for the Finns Party
and collides with the climate targets of the National Coalition and the Swedish People's
Party. Miettinen's assessment is that it will not amount to much: postponing the
blending obligation is the same move the previous government made, and Marin's government
left the increase to the start of 2024 — in Harju's words, the mine it left for its
successor. On the rest of climate policy Miettinen predicts vagueness: the climate act will
not be touched, the pace will be slowed, but the 2035 target will not be removed. His
comparison is the 0.7 per cent of development aid, which nobody adopts but which gets passed
on.

On work-based immigration Miettinen judges the Finns Party persuadable, provided humanitarian
immigration falls. He also notes that nobody can prevent work-based immigration from within
the EU, so the question concerns countries outside it.

## Who wins at the table

Harju's analysis of the negotiating set-up is the single best observation in the episode.
The National Coalition chairs all eight reform tables. You cannot infer the outcome directly
from that, but it determines what the base papers in those rooms look like — and the National
Coalition has more professional expertise, history and tradition, and better-prepared papers.
The Finns Party have improved, but not from equally strong ground. The Swedish People's Party
is small, ten MPs, but in a decisive position, so it may get a role larger than its size.

Miettinen agrees in a negotiator's terms: **whoever gets to write the papers is in a strong
position**, because they can make their own interpretations and steer the drafting. In the
sub-groups other parties do carry responsibility.

The theory Leivo raises about experts as a tool gets partial confirmation from both: when
hundreds of experts are heard — eight hundred was the figure discussed the week before — sheer
volume creates an impression that shifts the balance. Harju notes that the National Coalition
has far wider ties to the expert and interest-group world than the Finns Party, and that
"expert" is a loose term. Miettinen's counterweight: the spirit of the game lets the Swedish
People's Party and the Finns Party roll in their own, and the larger change is that
**corporate and union bodies have not been brought in to write the base texts**, as has
practically always been the case in Finland before — in the previous government
union-background special advisers and lobbyists wrote a large part of the programme.

## The Centre Party's choice

Asked by Leivo whether the Centre's categorical refusal surprised them, Harju says yes: its
answer to the formateur was not an answer at all but a notice of going into opposition — even
the Left Alliance answered the questions, though it knew it would not enter a government with
the National Coalition. She doubts it was the strategically best move.

Miettinen's reading is longer. The Centre's big mistake was to make itself a left-wing party
in the previous term, and the Social Democrats' polarisation tactic worked. Now the Centre is
permanently in the left bloc with no real way to raise support from opposition, because it
would have to argue with left-wing arguments. Harju specifies the direction: the votes were
lost specifically to the Finns Party, and the needling is already visible between individuals
in parliament.

Miettinen also says plainly what he thinks of **Sari Essayah's** tactics: she is a brilliant
substantive politician who makes no noise but plays regional policy so that the wellbeing
services counties get no taxation powers of their own. Harju's observation on the same point:
the Christian Democrats have not publicly set a single threshold condition, so they are not,
publicly at least, a difficult counterparty.

## Purra, Orpo and the Swedish People's Party

Miettinen considers Purra a strong leader and backs it with a concrete example: when
Putkonen had signed a trade union confederation paper, Purra reversed it mid-process. His
assessment is that replacing Halla-aho with Purra was a smart move, because Halla-aho was
damaged goods on the values axis. Harju balances this too: Purra carries her own baggage,
having come into the party through Suomen Sisu, and texts can be found — but she has
developed a great deal as a leader and comments to the press whenever asked.

Of Orpo, Miettinen says he is something of a teddy bear and a yes-man, but for that very
reason a unifying force in a quarrelsome situation; a fiercer chief negotiator would have
produced more incidents. For Finland's brand he is not what Marin was.

On the Swedish People's Party Miettinen's forecast runs against the grain: although there is
much agonising now about lost integrity, the party will shed its left-wing label, and if the
values axis stays neutral, the shift to the economic right will be a winning move for it.
Harju judges that this government will not make reforms improving minority rights — no trans
laws, no Sámi Parliament acts.

## Closing: what changes

Miettinen's wish list is explicitly his own: end the rise in the tax rate, remove the
solidarity tax, prune the spending side, introduce citizenship tests, and find some solution
for health and social care other than not finding nurses and adding expenditure. But his
**own forecast is pessimistic**: he would be surprised if taxation on employees or companies
were eased during this term. The likelier scenario is that the debt trajectory is bent
without it showing in a wage earner's tax.

Harju's forecast points the same way but is more cautious: economic policy moves rightward
but slips towards the centre, because the National Coalition and the Finns Party do not agree
on everything. Social security will see cuts at least through index freezes, and the Finns
Party's imprint will show in immigration policy and in cutting development aid. Her
qualification matters: if income tax is cut but a reduced VAT rate rises, the net effect and
who it falls on remain to be seen.

Harju's worry is procedural: if agreement is this hard to find already in the negotiations,
the term will be hard. Miettinen's is the opposite — he is looking forward to a return of
economic-policy sense, and regards the noise on the values axis as less critical.

Original recording (Puheenaihe): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQBXd1rHnlY

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, guest on Puheenaihe 348 — The Coalition Talks — Sami Miettinen and Elli Harju on Puheenaihe, 2023-06-04, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQBXd1rHnlY. Record: https://www.neuvottelija.com/media/puheenaihe-348-the-coalition-talks/.