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of equality, of equal treatment or citizens of the key issues of human rights sort of
the balance, where do we put balance between the right to privacy and the
importance of getting information for the authority. So, it’s a very lively, extremely
interesting committee actually that we have there.
Other thing that I really want to underline is the importance of laws. There are
lots of things one can do without laws. But, I think when we talk about equality, we
need laws. It has to be in the law, in the constitution, in more details laws, to give
guidance, for instance, to the employees, to give guidance to any service providers,
anybody in the society, how they should act in order to be, in order to treat, or
everybody in an equal manner. But also then, if this is not done, then it can be
challenged in the court. And of course you know, I hope that doesn’t need to happen
too often. I hope that the laws are having the preventing function, their guide,
their actions, and so forth. But then they, of course, they are then incense of
discrimination and unequal treatment. I do believe what most important that can be
taken than go to the court, and then to create important President in that respect
Also in terms of introduction, I just want to say one word about we have a
very strong and autonomous municipal administration in Finland as well. And this is
often said to be, to have been an important factor when we, unfortunately we had
a tragic and bloody brutal civil war in 1918, which could have divided the nation for
a century or centuries. But it didn’t do so. I think it’s unbelievable how quickly the
nation recovered. Of course, these issues are still painful. Many people find it still
painful to talk and of course… But still that the nation came together. There are
many examples. One of the examples is that we introduced the municipal
administration system, so that the formal enemies, they had to come together in the
municipal council and start really deciding together to get on issues, together how we
get over this. So, when you have sort of a joint cause, that helps.
And also, what I think it’s very typical of the Finnish politics is the coalition
building that we very often have in the government as well. We have a coalitions of
parties that represent very, very different views. So, this was already from the very
beginning, just some examples.
Let me start with the education. This is always said to be such an important
factor in the society that offers equal opportunities to all. This is something we have
seen in Finland. Our current comprehensive school system, which is very equal that
was initiated in the late 60s and started to implement in the 70s, but before that
I want to also go back in the history in the time when we were a young nation with
the hope of independence in the late 19 century and early 20 century. There was a
lot of discussions about the importance of education. ‘Cause there was also the
ª£¸²£ª±¡¡²¥¸h¡¢h¢µÈ kind of huge national resources like some other countries. We didn’t have wood or
realization in Finland which was a very poor country at that time. It didn’t have that
green gold. But anyway, we realize that the number one asset of Finland is its
people, and then we have to invest in the people. This is the most precious asset
that we have. This is what we have to invest in, and that we have to invest in
