04.11.2024
Rauno Lämsä and Raimo Ikonen: Northern Finland plays a crucial role in ensuring security of supply
According to HTT Raimo Ikonen and FL Rauno Lämsä's Northern Finland - A Future Offering Survey, Northern Finland plays a crucial role in the maintenance of the nation.Ensuring mercy and self-sufficiency. The liquidators have independently made the report available to the Regional Council of Northern Ostrobothnia.
Permanently changed operational and safety environments have highlighted new structures for regional development: accessibility and regional vitality, coupled with security of supply and self-sufficiency from the perspective of Finland as a whole. Self-sufficiency concerns food, energy and health. Regional needs and actions are increasingly of a national and, at the same time, European nature. There is now a need for a reform of national regional policy.
The northern routes are the only routes to Europe in the event of a crisis in the Baltic Sea. Strategic and critical resources are unpredictable. Accessibility is a European issue. The European Union should implement the Atlantic Corridor to ensure security of supply links and military mobility. This would be a road and railway complex covering the north, taking into account transport hubs and military mobility needs. In addition to the investments in the fairways, the internationalisation of the region's air transport connections calls for actors to strengthen the vitality of the region.
The great solutions of the future require national unity, trust and a functioning society that everyone can experience as their own. The economy hasn't grown in 17 years. The structure of society and the reform of services have been waiting for us. The attraction factor of society is effective governance, which creates the conditions to participate in the construction of society and the feeling of influencing one's own and the nation's affairs.
The health and social services reform must be given peace of mind. It is a deliberate obstruction to propose the combination of welfare areas that have begun, to force emergency solutions or the dismantling of local services. Corrective reforms and intrinsic cost-saving measures are available, such as a thorough dismantling of administration and standards, defining the service promise and prioritisation of society, the historic reform of primary health care, the introduction of a personal physician system, the implementation of digital services, the implementation of the home hospital system, mobile health centres and services, the simplification of regional administration, the simplification of the form and database, the enhancement of competitive tendering, real estate savings, the improvement of care for customers who use a lot of services, the limitation of government services and low-impact services. The significant cost-saving effect of the measures is estimated at EUR 2-3 billion in the medium term.
The province of North Ostrobothnia is showing the model with its own doctor model, an age clinic, family centre operations and a digital health centre, among other things. On the basis of the Oulu model, it has been decided to implement the self-medical system, i.e. the model of continuous care, in the entire well-being area. Studies have shown that the model improves performance by about 10%. This is reflected in the corresponding relief in specialized care. The aim is to implement a similar reform throughout the Northern Finland cooperation area. The deregulation of norms and the Hukkajahti project are part of improving the efficiency of primary health care and municipal operations. Lightening the steering system and removing bureaucracy are now more important than money, which is why the activities of the Government and ministries need to be improved. The management of well-being areas must be developed. The reform phase of Sote II is in turn in the light of the experience gained. The question has rightly been raised that we are close to breaking the spirit and the letter of the Constitution with this controversy.
The municipal model has come to an end and we need to move to the municipal model of cooperation. Municipalities focus on three main tasks: promoting health and well-being, education and early childhood education and care, and promoting employment in accordance with the criteria defined in national guidance. Otherwise, municipalities act alone or together with other municipalities, and by concluding partnership agreements, cooperation agreements or networking to strengthen their operational capacity.
The overall reform of the Local Government Act would proceed in stages. After the dismantling of norms and duties, the Government will issue a framework law for the experiment on the free municipality for the years 2027-2030, during which municipalities will build models for cooperative municipalities. The revised Local Government Act would enter into force in 2030. The new municipalities focus on ensuring a sense of community and local services, which create the basis for life and well-being for the residents of the municipality. A cooperative municipality can more easily produce multidisciplinary services that promote employment.
Today, the regions do not have an overall responsible actor, but different actors with different networks. There is no unified receiver of control messages. Reform of the provincial government is needed. Northern Ostrobothnia could be a forerunner and carry out a provincial experiment during the next government. It would be a natural continuation of the county's forerunner status. Working on the EU Structural Funds programme in three major regions instead of one, as well as directing regional development funding to the regions, would be the first step in outlining the provincial administration. A government decision is needed in time.
Strengthening the vitality of the regions will be central to the development of Northern Ostrobothnia. In addition to accessibility, the availability of labour, education and innovation measures, the bioeconomy and tourism will offer the future. An active industrial policy is needed. The Government's tenacious implementation of the eight urban programmes raises concerns about regional confrontation. Delays in the implementation of programmes in Eastern and Northern Finland also raise concerns.
Training measures, in particular the increase in apprenticeships and trials to reduce the duration of vocational training, will have an impact on labour supply. The reintegration of pensioners who are able to work into the labour market would significantly increase the number of employed persons through various means of the survey, neutral taxation of additional earnings and a bonus voucher for pensioners. A migration and assistance package for international talents would be developed.
Proposals for training activities start from the beginning of the training phases. Primary school reform needs to be accelerated. Efforts should be made to reduce vocational training. One of the development areas of university education in Oulu is the implementation of the 6G syllabus and otherwise the establishment of the 6G Fund for Northern Finland to secure equal opportunities in the region. Joint Master's programmes would produce impact in order to promote vitality. A NATO Centre of Excellence could well coexist with the 6G doctrine, where dual-use technology could be promoted. The goal of advocacy in the county should be to create a regional student loan credit to attract the workforce.
Ensuring the future of the tourism hub requires a substantial improvement in accessibility. The tourist fee should be introduced in the province as early as 2026, in line with the property tax, and the proceeds directly to the municipalities, in addition to the substantial increase in the mining tax (4-6 %). The bioeconomy is a rapidly growing range of livelihoods in the region. Combinations of bioeconomy and biogas, solar power and dual-fuel engines are needed rather than wind power.
Finland should sharpen its ambitions for the EU. The R&D and innovation targets are realised as European targets, but a nationally vital security programme for the EU's eastern border regions covering the entire eastern border of more than 1,300 kilometres will not be realised without Finland's efforts. The programme should be distinct from cohesion policy actions. The implementation of the Structural Funds programme in the three major regions would bring more specific actions at regional level and a higher EU contribution. The criterion of sparsely populated areas needs to be expanded in terms of content in order to secure access to basic and local services.
Debt-ridden Finland should not finance the other wealthiest EU countries. If necessary, the government should be one of the EU leaders on the basis of the EU's own resources, i.e. the reform of the financial system based on the GNI model adjusted for purchasing power. Catastrophic failures such as the recovery package must be avoided in a situation where the net contribution is constantly increasing.
In the medium term, complex proposals are expected to generate additional earnings and cost savings of around EUR 3-4 billion. Over the next decade, it will be much bigger. According to Lämsä and Ikonen, Northern Ostrobothnia should build its image on a six-metre foundation: forests, minerals, tourism, rural areas, national defence and imagery.
Northern Finland - Futures report available
Additional information:
HTT Raimo Ikonen, tel. +358 50 559 9179, social welfare, municipal and regional affairs
FL Rauno Lämsä, tel. +358 40 664 7630, regional development, vitality and EU affairs
