This autumn is filled with work in Parliament. We are busy renewing laws, from mining to taxis, from waste to the duration of compulsory education. Alongside this, we take steps towards sustainability and equality and handle the COVID situation in a responsible way, taking into consideration both health and economics.

The Government budget proposal means that reforms and investments proceed despite the crisis. In a normal situation, net borrowing of billions of euros couldn´t be justified.

Setting a zero-tolerance policy on bullying in public speeches is not enough. Concrete action and sufficient resources are needed to prevent bullying.

In September, a pupil was subjected to brutal violence at the Kytöpuisto school in Vantaa. Helsingin Uutiset, in turn, wrote about a case where an eighth-grade boy was threatened with violence at recess and the incident was uploaded to social media. The cases are shocking and demonstrate a failure to guarantee school safety in practice.

Work is a remarkable part of everyday life for many of us. No matter how much one might love one’s job, work is always, among the positive aspects, also a source of encumbrance and stress. I have had a close look at the trend of young women getting burnout in my circle of friends and as a politician, I am truly worried. Themes of employment are usually a dominant part of the Finnish political discussion of the national economy and its future. Among the debates of jobs created and jobs lost, the issue of wellbeing and exhaustion need to be at the center of the discourse too.

Our modern day lives have largely shifted to networks, and the criminals have done the same. Facebook, Momio, Tiktok, Brawl Stars etc. are part of our children’s everyday life, but many of us parents don’t know them at all. Online interaction is different from face to face interaction, because in the online world you can also operate anonymously. It is a different world where everything is not what it looks like, which we must not forget.

The COVID-19 crisis accelerates the structural change of the Finnish economy. With the intelligent automation old jobs will die, and new jobs are born at the same time. New skills are needed as technological development significantly changes every third job. Nearly 80% of new jobs require higher education, while the number of the tasks with the lower education

6th of November 2020 was a remarkable day in the Finnish democracy. On that Friday, the Parliament of Finland agreed on that female genital mutilation (FGM) should be more accurately criminalized in the Finnish legislation. The debate and voting were based on a citizens’ initiative with over 61 000 signatures demanding a separate piece of legislation that would clearly prohibit FGMs. 

 Violence and bullying are hot topics in the media, but which have been present especially during this fall. New school violence cases are being continuously reported. 

The problem has not been eliminated and not enough measures have been taken to guarantee its prevention. Recently I put to motion a citizens’ initiative in the parliament which has been signed by 52,000 Finns demanding concrete actions to prevent the school bullying and alienation of children.

Every sovereign country is responsible for its security primarily on its own. International agreements, various alliances, and predictable and stability supporting foreign policy are a good basis also for Finland. However, the benevolence of all operators cannot be trusted. Alongside diplomacy, intelligence is also needed. Our security environment has significantly changed and become more complex in recent years.

The history of migration in Finland is relatively short. In the early 20^th century a large number of Finns emigrated to the United States. later, in the 1960’s thousands of Finnish emigrated to Sweden in search for jobs. Compared to emigration, immigration to Finland is a recent phenomenon.

The problems in health and social care have remained the same for a long time. The past governments have tried to implement comprehensive reforms over the past 15 years.  The health system is complex, multi-tiered and decentralised. Population is aging, service needs are increasing and the costs are running out of the hand and there are serious problems with access to basic services in particular.

President Mauno Koivisto often referred to the words on the Kings Gate of the Suomenlinna fortress: “Posterity, stand here upon your own ground and never rely on foreign assistance.”, when summarising the foundation of our security policy. He emphasised that for a small country it is vital to keep friends close and enemies far away, rather than other way round.

Finnish business life and jobs are in the midst of structural change. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to reform our economy. If we want to improve Finland's competitiveness in the long run, industry and the entire business community must take a sustainability leap. 

Nationalism is a relatively young ideology dating from the 18th century. Before its rise states were not defined primarily by nations but by their sovereign rulers following the principles established in the Treaty of Westphalen in 1648. 

States in the Westphalian system were mostly multinational, multiethnic, multilingual and multireligious entities. Nationalities were often divided into subjects of many different rulers, as were Germans and Italians. 

Rarely have we felt how urgently global affairs are equally also very local, as now, during these months under the covid-19 crisis.  As a politician in the national parliament, with a particular interest in international affairs and human rights issues, I have always been quite aware of how we after all share so many of the same challenges and that even when not, we are not detached from events happening in other parts of the world.

In 2004 Caterina Fake co-founded Flickr in the U.S. and only 5 years later people had shared about 5 billion photos through the channel. In 2020 Fake wanted to move to Finland with her daughter. However, moving to Finland turned out to be an administrative obstacle. In my opinion, it shouldn’t be, as we would benefit from attracting people like her.

Tourism is one of the worst affected industries by the pandemic. The flow of travellers has practically stopped and numerous entrepreneurs and employees are facing unprecedented financial challenges or even collapse. The travel industry employs some 140,000 people in Finland of which more than a third in the Uusimaa region. 

SLIGHTLY OVER A YEARhas now passed since the parliamentary elections. Who would have thought last spring that discussions around the world would today be dominated by a single topic? The coronavirus epidemic and how countries are able to get back on their feet from the virus that has paralysed the entire world. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the new coronavirus as a global pandemic on 11 March 2020.

Finland’s representative democracy has played an important role during our first one hundred years of independence. Strong and tried-and-tested state institutions have provided stability and confidence in political decision making—in times of war and peace. During the Second World War in Europe, only the parliaments of Finland and Britain continued to function without interruption throughout the war years.

Climate change is undeniably one of the most substantial factors of our time-altering societies and policies globally. It is a proven fact that almost every country in the world is committed to fighting and mitigating climate change. Besides climate change, we have faced another adversity during the last few months as we have seen how the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has changed the world in an unprecedented way.

European integration has led to a decline in trade costs. Still, trade between European countries is estimated to be about four times less than between US states once the influence of language and other factors have been accounted for. Non-tariff obstacles to trade are estimated to average only half of the value of trade.