---
title: "Finland's Only Republican? | Matti Apunen | Negotiator 149"
titleOriginal: "Suomen ainoa republikaani? | Matti Apunen | Neuvottelija 149"
episodeNumber: "149"
guest: "Matti Apunen"
datePublished: 2022-08-21
duration: "57:46"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e029vqr6occ"
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["free_speech_society","finnish_economy_policy"]
subtitleMethod: "none"
provenance: "Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata and the neuvottelija.fi episode record. No chapter marks are published here: the publisher's list holds only two marks, at 0:00 and 0:46, and it is a split of the show-note text rather than a chapter list, so republishing it would assert timestamps that do not hold. No transcript is published either — the channel has no English caption track for this episode and the Finnish one is YouTube's automatic track. The guest chaired the board of Yle when this was recorded and Yle's position is discussed in the episode; he is also a former director of the think tank EVA, which is funded by Finnish employers, and the positions he argues here are consistent with that. The tax-ratio figures are those of 2022."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/207-suomen-ainoa-republikaani-matti-apunen-neuvottelija-149"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep149-suomen-ainoa-republikaani-matti-apunen/
---
# Finland's Only Republican? | Matti Apunen | Negotiator 149

English subtitles are not available on this page. This is an episode summary, not a curated transcript.

## Summary

Matti Apunen — chair of the board of the Finnish public broadcaster Yle, former editor-in-chief of Aamulehti and co-host of the A&M podcast — has described himself as Finland's only republican. He explains what classical liberalism and republicanism in Buckley's tradition mean to him, and why he treats every euro paid in tax as a piece of personal freedom given up. The host presses him to set Finland's 42 per cent tax ratio against other Western countries and asks why Finnish private wealth has fallen behind Sweden's. The conversation runs from editing Aamulehti to Yle's competitive position, the decline of business journalism, and why statism is in Apunen's view the fundamental problem of the Finnish economy.

## A label that does not translate

Republicanism in Buckley's sense is a specific American tradition, not a statement about Finland's head of state, and Apunen uses the word precisely because the mismatch forces the question. What he means by it is a fairly orthodox classical liberalism with a particular attitude to the state's claim on the individual.

## Tax as surrendered freedom

This is the premise the rest of his position rests on, and it is where the episode earns its keep: the host does not let it stand as an assertion, but puts Finland's tax ratio against comparable countries and asks what the framing predicts. The exchange is more informative than either position stated alone.

## The chair of Yle arguing for less state

He holds the position and makes the argument at the same time, and the episode does not pretend the two sit comfortably together. Reading it as a contradiction or as a principled separation is left to the listener, but the fact belongs on the page.


## Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [Suomen ainoa republikaani? | Matti Apunen | Neuvottelija 149](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e029vqr6occ).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/207-suomen-ainoa-republikaani-matti-apunen-neuvottelija-149).

## In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode:
[English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep149-suomen-ainoa-republikaani-matti-apunen/) · [suomeksi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep149-suomen-ainoa-republikaani-matti-apunen/).

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — Finland's Only Republican? | Matti Apunen | Negotiator 149, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep149-suomen-ainoa-republikaani-matti-apunen/, 2022-08-21. For quotes include episode 149 and timestamp.