Recently, the government of Finland 'fell', and an election had to be held to reset the political scene, and hopefully find a path out of their current 'issue'. This essay will lay out the basic problems, and the impossibility of curing that 'issue'.
When you go and define a stable or unstable country in Europe today (versus forty years ago), one of the major issues is ageing/shrinking population numbers. Some nations are sustaining themselves to some degree, and others (like Finland) are in serious jeopardy.
If you use the Finland national statistics agency numbers....around a quarter of the population (5.5-million) will by 2030....be over the age of 65. Ten years after that point, the number of Octogenarians (age 80 or more) is supposed to be near half-a-million in 2040. You can do a trend analysis sheet and basically say that this one single problem is forcing politicians to rethink a whole bunch of things, and the solutions don't look that great.
Openness to immigration? Well, yes and no. The numbers (if you use 2017 data) suggest that around six to seven percent of the population are non-Finn. The bulk? A big chunk are from Estonia and Russia. It is true over the past five years that various immigrants have come from Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, and Syria (probably in the range of 28,000). There's well over 30 cultures who've settled into Finland (1,500 Americans live there as well).
If you bring up this issue of migration, Finns will generally say that they came to Helsinki, and the other three major cities of the country (Tampere, Turku, Oulu). Once you get 150 miles from Helsinki, jobs are limited, and no one really cares to migrate or settle into a highly rural area.
So those populations in the center or north of Finland, are in a declining situation, growing older, and they need real healthcare.
What the politicians are attempting to do (doesn't matter which party is chatting), is create some 'fair' level of healthcare for those beyond the four major cities of Finland, and this situation revolves around in a circle because you'd need a massive amount of money to create a fair and equal healthcare system.
Now, if they weren't part of the EU....they'd go and create public debt of an extreme variety (borrowing against the future). But those funny EU folks made up a couple of financial rules to prevent enlarging public debt. The magic number often brought up? There's a four-percent difference in GDP value with the difference between government expenditures, and projected tax revenue.
Resolving this? You basically come to three solutions:
1. You raise taxes even more (sales tax in Finland is now 24-percent, and the income tax is regarded as one of the highest in Europe). This might trigger a recession, but they've made so many promises about equal care, that it may not matter.
2. You go and find some way of raising production or commerce. But because of taxes and limited commerce over the past decades, it's highly unlikely you can invent this. Also, don't bother suggesting a Finn-Trump.
3. You just renege on the equal healthcare promise.
My humble prediction? If one looks over the next decade, the political 'ballroom dance' being conducted, the declining public numbers, the lessening of population in rural areas....then I'd suggest the following four things to occur:
1. A significant recession period will likely be part of the landscape.
2. The recession (confined mostly to Finland) will 'invite' newer migrants and immigrants to pack up and leave....triggering a number of problems which politicians can't really solve.
3. Younger Finns will give up on the rural areas, and some towns (particularly in the north) will be 50-percent age 50 or more.
4. Racialized politics will be seen, and feared by the intellectual-class. Ranging from far-left to far-right....everyone will be seeking solutions with no real valid potential for success.
So if you were looking for a landscape with political intrigue, economic woes around the corner, and a healthcare system which cannot ever be equal for all citizens....come to Finland. Strangely enough, it has been one of the countries where happiness is measured on an impressive scale.
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