---
title: "The Unrestrained Man of the National Coalition | Sture Fjäder | Negotiator 162"
titleOriginal: "Kokoomuksen hillitön mies | Sture Fjäder | Neuvottelija 162"
episodeNumber: "162"
guest: "Sture Fjäder"
datePublished: 2022-11-20
duration: "44:42"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt1T5WAxy5A"
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["finnish_economy_policy","leadership_governance"]
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 0:45, and the second one's own text quotes a timestamp of 44:42 — 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 was preparing a parliamentary candidacy for the National Coalition Party when this was recorded, and the episode is his platform in his own words; the labour-market organisations and the healthcare professions he criticises are not represented in it."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/233-kokoomuksen-hilliton-mies-sture-fjader-neuvottelija-162"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep162-kokoomuksen-hilliton-mies-sture-fjader/
---
# The Unrestrained Man of the National Coalition | Sture Fjäder | Negotiator 162

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

## Summary

Sture Fjäder, for many years president of the Finnish confederation of professionals Akava, is moving into party politics and says plainly why. The episode covers public debt, an employment rate trailing the other Nordic countries, and the question Fjäder says nobody asks: whether everything currently paid for out of tax revenue is actually needed. He argues for lower income tax, Canadian-style work-based immigration and voucher-funded primary healthcare. It also carries his criticism of the nurse staffing ratio and of the social and health services reform, and a discussion of why defending a market economy remains such a delicate subject in Finland.

## The prior question

Most Finnish fiscal debate starts from the commitments and argues about how to fund them. Fjäder's contribution is to move one step back and ask which commitments are still wanted at all. Whether or not one accepts his answers, the reordering is what makes the episode worth keeping.

## From the confederation to the party

He spent years speaking for Akava, where the job is to represent members rather than to hold a personal position. The episode is recorded at the point where that constraint has just come off, and the difference in what he is willing to say is visible.

## The Nordic employment gap

One number carries most of his argument: Finland's employment rate against its neighbours'. It is the right summary statistic if the diagnosis is structural, and the episode leans on it heavily enough that the diagnosis stands or falls with it.


## Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [Kokoomuksen hillitön mies | Sture Fjäder | Neuvottelija 162](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt1T5WAxy5A).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/233-kokoomuksen-hilliton-mies-sture-fjader-neuvottelija-162).

## In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode:
[English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep162-kokoomuksen-hilliton-mies-sture-fjader/) · [suomeksi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep162-kokoomuksen-hilliton-mies-sture-fjader/).

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — The Unrestrained Man of the National Coalition | Sture Fjäder | Negotiator 162, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep162-kokoomuksen-hilliton-mies-sture-fjader/, 2022-11-20. For quotes include episode 162 and timestamp.