---
title: "Negotiation Club + Inner Circle | Tere Sammallahti, Onni Rostila | Negotiator 377"
titleOriginal: "Neuvotteluklubi + Sisäpiiri | Tere Sammallahti Onni Rostila | Neuvottelija 377"
episodeNumber: "377"
guest: "Tere Sammallahti, Onni Rostila"
datePublished: 2026-03-23
duration: "01:08:32"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A"
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["finnish_economy_policy","ownership_capital_tax","geopolitics"]
subtitleMethod: "none"
provenance: "Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata, the neuvottelija.fi episode record and the channel's own uploaded Finnish caption track (1,015 cues). The chapter marks are the publisher's own, as released with the video, and were translated one for one; the 55:50 mark is labelled as the free Inner Circle segment because the publisher's own show notes label it that way. No English caption track was produced, so no transcript is published here. Both speakers are sitting MPs and the conversation is openly right-of-centre; the long-form write-up in the Neuvottelija AI editions attributes the claims by speaker and separates prediction from argument."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/758-neuvotteluklubi-sisapiiri-tere-sammallahti-onni-rostila-neuv"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep377-neuvotteluklubi-sammallahti-rostila/
---
# Negotiation Club + Inner Circle | Tere Sammallahti, Onni Rostila | Negotiator 377

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

## Chapters

- [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=0s) The scale of public-sector efficiency potential
- [01:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=80s) The original Viisasteluklubi line-up back together
- [02:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=121s) Sami's successful bribery of Tere and Onni
- [02:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=141s) Helsingin Sanomat's investigation into gifts to MPs
- [03:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=194s) The tax anatomy of a champagne bottle
- [04:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=266s) Gifts and the element of corruption in politics
- [05:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=337s) Finnish transparency in European comparison
- [06:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=389s) Where the line for an acceptable gift runs
- [07:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=428s) The long game and influencing people in advance
- [08:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=502s) Onni Rostila as deputy chair of the Constitutional Law Committee
- [08:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=531s) Assessing Finland's constitutional committee system
- [09:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=596s) Ex ante review versus a constitutional court
- [10:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=653s) The US model and the danger of politicisation
- [12:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=728s) On the committee a politician is still a politician
- [13:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=781s) Procedural safeguards for objectivity
- [14:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=851s) The committee's workload and credibility
- [15:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=926s) The constitution and the universality of social security
- [16:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=1004s) National sovereignty and supranational law
- [18:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=1108s) The EU's new role as a restrainer of migration
- [19:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=1193s) Finland as a trendsetter in border security law
- [20:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=1215s) Tere Sammallahti announces his run for deputy chair
- [21:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=1287s) Why now and on what mandate
- [22:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=1340s) The competitors and the district meeting process
- [23:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=1413s) Is this a contest about the party's direction
- [24:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=1482s) A conservative grassroots versus a t-shirt politician
- [25:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=1528s) Three theses for the deputy chairmanship
- [26:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=1611s) Ideological groundwork as a party's foundation
- [28:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=1714s) Being an MP constrains what you can post
- [30:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=1806s) On inheritance tax the Swedish data speaks plainly
- [31:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=1889s) Budget session tactics and advance flourishes
- [33:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=2002s) Company effects of inheritance tax go unstudied
- [34:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=2066s) A proposed 40 per cent capital income bracket
- [35:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=2114s) The Finns Party's savings proposals on development aid
- [37:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=2236s) Tax incentives for family and wealth accumulation
- [38:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=2325s) The socialist logic behind dependence on the state
- [41:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=2460s) A 10 per cent efficiency gain would cover the sustainability gap
- [43:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=2616s) A birth grant into an investment account and the pension turn
- [45:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=2730s) This is Finland versus the world, not internal competition
- [48:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=2934s) Europe's youngest to leave home, at a high price
- [50:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=3044s) The SDP harassment inquiry went to script
- [53:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=3208s) The SDP leads the polls despite the internal mess
- [55:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=3350s) Inner Circle, free: Iran part two, Trump's bunker busters and Europe's risks
- [59:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=3565s) An inverted Ukraine model, Russia backing Iran
- [1:01:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=3670s) Iran three times the size of Iraq, the power vacuum risk
- [1:03:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=3789s) An air campaign cannot change a regime without a popular movement
- [1:04:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=3855s) The oil price rises and Putin's windfall grows
- [1:06:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=3969s) Hoping the energy market normalises soon
- [1:07:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=4045s) China, Russia and Iran, and a wild geopolitical moment
- [1:08:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A&t=4099s) Sami's investment banking years in London

## Summary

The Viisasteluklubi's original line-up returns to the Neuvottelija studio. MPs Tere Sammallahti (National Coalition) and Onni Rostila (Finns Party) work through Helsingin Sanomat's investigation into gifts given to MPs, and both end up defending transparency rather than the gifts. Rostila, now deputy chair of Parliament's Constitutional Law Committee, defends Finland's ex ante constitutional review on three structural grounds and concedes that three years on the committee institutionalise you. Sammallahti announces here, publicly for the first time, that he is running for deputy chair of his party, and names his competitors. The economic half covers Swedish wealth data, the scoping of Finnish inheritance tax research, a proposed 40 per cent capital income bracket, and Sami Miettinen's thousand-euro birth endowment. Unusually, the Neuvottelija Sisapiiri segment on the Iran war that closes the episode was published free as part of the main episode: about thirteen minutes, from 55:50 to the end, of material that normally sits behind channel membership.

## What makes this episode unusual

Neuvottelija Sisäpiiri is a paid tier: its episodes normally sit behind YouTube channel
membership and are not published on the open side. Here the Inner Circle segment on the Iran
war was released free as part of the main episode because of how current the subject was. It
runs from **55:50** to the end at **1:08:32** — about thirteen minutes, roughly a fifth of the
episode — and it is the whole discussion rather than an excerpt.

## The argument in three parts

**Gifts.** Rostila states that citizens have a right, a duty and a moral warrant to question
whether accepting gifts worth hundreds of euros is legitimate. Sammallahti, an Espoo city
councillor, says he has categorically refused festival tickets offered to councillors, and
compares the public sector unfavourably with a private employer where every gift larger than an
ordinary lunch had to be cleared with the CEO. Miettinen's addition is that the mechanism that
matters is the time horizon — friendships built years before the other person holds power — and
that no declaration requirement reaches it.

**The Constitutional Law Committee.** Rostila defends Finland's ex ante review on three grounds:
it removes the legal uncertainty that persists under a constitutional court until a case is
heard; politicisation does not disappear under a court model but moves to appointments or to how
rulings are received; and procedural safeguards, not personal objectivity, are what carry the
assessment. He volunteers that three years on the committee institutionalise you. Miettinen,
who used to favour a constitutional court, says the advantage of a changing composition is that
you can vote.

**Ownership, inheritance and incentives.** Sammallahti's sharpest argument concerns a research
design rather than a rate: Finnish inheritance tax research has measured effects at household
level rather than company level, so a €30,000 exemption protects the person inheriting a flat
and does nothing for a company. Miettinen reframes the whole debate as Finland versus the rest
of the world rather than Finn versus Finn, and proposes €1,000 of starting capital for every
child born, locked until sixty, as the seed of a front-loaded pension system.

## Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [Neuvotteluklubi + Sisäpiiri | Tere Sammallahti Onni Rostila | Neuvottelija 377](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmasQcu_6A).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/758-neuvotteluklubi-sisapiiri-tere-sammallahti-onni-rostila-neuv).

## In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode, with the claims
attributed by speaker, prediction separated from argument, and a section on how the two open
questions — the deputy chair contest and inheritance tax — were resolved after recording:
[English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep377-neuvotteluklubi-sammallahti-rostila/) · [suomeksi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep377-neuvotteluklubi-sammallahti-rostila/).

## Explore the ideas in depth

- [Negotiation Strategy, Leverage and Power: Reading the Counterparty You Actually Have](https://www.neuvottelija.com/guides/negotiation-strategy-leverage-and-power/): A negotiation guide from the co-author of Neuvotteluvalta — the sources of leverage, BATNA and anchoring in practice, using information asymmetry, breaking deadlocks, and what to do when the counterparty negotiates on power rather than consensus. Grounded in Neuvottelija conversations and two decades of negotiation writing.

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — Negotiation Club + Inner Circle | Tere Sammallahti, Onni Rostila | Negotiator 377, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep377-neuvotteluklubi-sammallahti-rostila/, 2026-03-23. For quotes include episode 377 and timestamp.