Speaking at his National Coalition Party conference in Vantaa on Saturday, Katainen made several veiled comments on the recent Social Democratic Party change of leadership.
“More and more, the Finnish political arena is mining the past to find answers. In the desire to resolve the feeling of uncertainty, we seek to build up the old Finnish state once again,” says Katainen.
The task of the centre-right NCP party, of which he is chair until June, is to defend people’s freedom of choice, the central motor of societal development, in his opinion.
“Do we prefer to believe in a state leadership mandate or that people be allowed to make their own choices?” he asks.
Katainen believes there will be a rising demand for policies based on individual freedom in the future.
“We cannot become radicalized"
According to Katainen, a state-run ideology will always strive to come up with perfect solutions, but only nations that are brave enough to experiment and cope with imperfect solutions will manage in the competitive global market.
“The force engendering social change in Finland will be an enhanced freedom of choice and a better appreciation of varying types of know-how,” he says.
In an obvious reference to the near 50/50 split in the Social Democrat party chair election yesterday, Katainen says that there is a rapidly growing ideological divide among supporters of political parties in Finland. He is concerned about whether Finland will be able to work together towards the common good if things move in a more radical direction.
“We cannot go down that path: that in order to strengthen our support; we marginalize ourselves or become more radical. Finland will always have things that it must decide upon collectively. We must maintain our ability to make compromises.”