Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen says the package of structural reforms will allow Finland a confident future. He claims that the agreement does not so much consist of cuts as structural changes, adding that if this bundle of reforms proves insufficient, more will be tabled.
Minister of Finance Jutta Urpilainen (SDP) said that the reforms are a sign to the world that Finland is is taking care of business.
The structural reform programme lists dozens of ways in which the government intends to bridge the Finnish sustainability gap, which is currently calculated at 4.7 percent of GDP.
Aged care slashed by 300 million euros, childcare fees hiked
The agreement outlines almost 40 different ways to reduce municipal expenditure by over a billion euros. For example, aged care is to suffer cuts of some 300 million euros.
Additional ideas include bringing in school helpers to support larger class sizes, reducing the network of regional libraries and lengthening the validity of prescriptions to two years.
Childcare fees will rise so that municipal revenues gain a boost of 25 million euros, with the main burden falling on higher income families.
The legal time a minor must spend at school will be extended, with a particular focus on getting 17 year olds who are not in further education back in the classroom.
The subjective right to daycare will be changed so that non-working parents will no longer have the automatic right to childcare. This will come into force in 2015, while the adjustments to home care support services will come into power from August the same year.
A tripartite reform to the policy governing career breaks is also on the drawing board. It will come into force in Autumn 2014.