---
title: "The European election, the Mannheim stabbing, and who gets to fly a flag — Sami Miettinen on Weekly Wiseguys"
titleOriginal: "Viisastelu: \"Rahat tänne ja turpa tukkoon!\" T: Suomi | Saksan puukkohyökkäys | Ylen ökybudjetti"
description: "Sami Miettinen, Tere Sammallahti and MP Onni Rostila on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 3 June 2024: why the composition of the European Parliament decides the volume of regulation, a request for shades of grey in the immigration debate, the argument about public authorities flying flags, and a long look at the public broadcaster's funding."
format: "podcast"
show: "Viikon viisasteluklubi"
episode: "Viisastelu 3.6.2024"
hosts: ["Ivan Puopolo"]
date: 2024-06-03
duration: "59:03"
language: "fi"
original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVyRPQEIT80
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/media/viisastelu-money-and-silence-solingen-and-yle-budget/
---

# The European election, the Mannheim stabbing, and who gets to fly a flag — Sami Miettinen on Weekly Wiseguys

Sami Miettinen joined **Viikon viisastelu** — Ivan Puopolo's weekly political panel, known in
English here as *Weekly Wiseguys* — on 3 June 2024, alongside **Tere Sammallahti** and Finns
Party MP **Onni Rostila**, six days before the European election and three days after the
Mannheim stabbing.

The first section is about regulation rather than parties: why the composition of the Parliament
and Commission matters more to national rules than turnout suggests, followed by a round of the
table on the most pointless EU rule anyone can name. One speaker defends a rule the others
dislike, which is the only time in the series anyone does.

The second is the sharpest stretch in the episode, and it contains its most careful sentence.
Alongside a precise linguistic observation — a "phobia" means an irrational fear, which sits
badly when a writer is attacked over the subject he writes about — one speaker says plainly that
immigration is not a monolith, that the debate needs shades of grey, and that the great majority
of people in any group are law-abiding. The episode reads differently without those lines, so
this write-up marks them. It also marks the figures taken from an unnamed social-media source,
and the guest who objects to the panel's own idealised comparison with the United States.

The later sections cover flags on government buildings — argued as a question of whether public
authority takes political positions in its official capacity, a rule that cuts both ways — and a
long critique of public broadcaster funding, from which two things survive: the competition
argument about free content on shared platforms, and an observation that applies to any publicly
funded body, that a cut is always announced against whatever the audience is most attached to.

## Chapters

- **00:52** — The line-up
- **01:44** — Today's agenda
- **02:30** — Who gets defined as far right
- **03:21** — The same party, different labels
- **04:08** — Why the composition decides
- **04:55** — How much regulation comes from Brussels
- **05:42** — Definitions widening
- **06:32** — The annual volume of regulation
- **07:18** — The drinking water directive as an example
- **08:04** — The Commission's competence and delegated acts
- **08:54** — Round the table: the most pointless EU rule
- **09:49** — Gender quotas and compost inspectors
- **10:37** — The recovery instrument and bottle caps
- **11:24** — The German stabbing: what happened
- **12:14** — Silence, and its political consequence
- **13:06** — The victims and the sequence of events
- **13:59** — How the victim was described
- **14:45** — Two strands in Germany
- **15:35** — Energy policy and emissions
- **16:26** — Natural and synthetic
- **17:18** — Radiation and perception
- **18:04** — From a cartoon to the stabbings
- **18:52** — A list that keeps going
- **19:41** — A request for shades of grey
- **20:30** — What has already happened
- **21:32** — The threat of violence and the role of outside states
- **22:18** — The metaphor of a home
- **23:04** — The AfD's own problems
- **23:52** — What if the mainstream had reacted in time
- **24:38** — Five per cent and the rest
- **25:23** — American neighbourhoods as a comparison
- **26:10** — Why it is different there
- **27:28** — The citizenship test and the rituals
- **28:14** — Flag, anthem and belonging
- **29:04** — Why people join demonstrations
- **29:54** — America starts from somewhere else
- **30:40** — Selection in immigration
- **31:27** — The other half of the story
- **32:16** — Flags on government buildings
- **33:02** — Tax money and mandate
- **33:49** — Who decides the allocation
- **34:39** — What a non-governmental organisation is
- **35:34** — The university as a political actor
- **36:22** — Demand and funding
- **37:08** — Public authority represents everyone
- **37:57** — An editor's own profile
- **38:47** — Party-political neutrality
- **39:33** — How the decision was made
- **40:18** — The human-rights claim examined
- **41:07** — A new columnist and agenda journalism
- **42:02** — What "trust in media" measures
- **42:53** — Trust splitting by group
- **43:42** — The explanation nobody offers
- **44:36** — Who gets invited to the studio
- **45:24** — Everything else is tinfoil
- **46:16** — Counting the gender of experts
- **47:03** — An algorithm that educates
- **47:49** — Data, log-ins and transparency
- **48:36** — €595 million and the competitive position
- **49:25** — A cut always lands on the most sympathetic thing
- **50:13** — What a public broadcaster is for
- **51:00** — The original rationale, and the internet
- **51:47** — The dumping comparison
- **52:35** — A hundred million in bought services
- **53:26** — Employment as the objective
- **54:14** — The martyr argument
- **55:00** — Accountability for results
- **55:52** — What is good there
- **56:44** — National identity and the media
- **57:38** — If the funding were cut
- **58:25** — Sign-off

**The recording lives on Ivan Puopolo’s own channel and he owns it.** This page is a record of the appearance and a pointer to the original, not a copy of it. The chapter marks above are derived from the recording itself; the episode carries no published chapter list of its own.

A fuller write-up is on Neuvottelija AI, [in English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-rahat-tanne-saksan-puukkoisku-ja-ylen-budjetti/) and [in Finnish](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-rahat-tanne-saksan-puukkoisku-ja-ylen-budjetti/).

Original recording (Viikon viisasteluklubi): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVyRPQEIT80

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, guest on Viikon viisasteluklubi Viisastelu 3.6.2024 — The European election, the Mannheim stabbing, and who gets to fly a flag — Sami Miettinen on Weekly Wiseguys, 2024-06-03, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVyRPQEIT80. Record: https://www.neuvottelija.com/media/viisastelu-money-and-silence-solingen-and-yle-budget/.