Running for the EU Parliament

On May 26th is the election day for the European Parliament! In late April Hankeiten met one of the candidates, Hanken student Filip Björklöf. We talked about campaigning, elections, compared Finnish and American politics, why every vote matters and how to find the right candidate for you.

Filip is finishing up his degree at Hanken. He’s from Raasepori and has been living between there and Helsinki for the last eight years. After having been member of the city council and the city board of Raasepori he’s now running as a candidate in the upcoming EU parliamentary elections.

Filip’s interest in politics stems from a broader interest in society, rather than any specific issue. “Maybe the big thing was when I was running for the city council when I was 21 and got elected - I was not expecting that! After that, it has been a lot of politics all the time.”

A lot of things have changed since he ran for the city council in 2012. “It sounds like I’m a very old man now, but everything with design and how social media works… Things change pretty rapidly. The basics remain the same, but I just feel like how much more professional everything has become.” He has especially noticed how personal branding has become more significant in politics - even as elections are performed on party level, the person has become more important.

A candidate should always be super active and have a lot of energy, says Filip. He has also run in the Finnish parliamentary elections in 2015, so he has experience in campaigning both in local and national elections. The electoral districts influence the campaigning experience - in municipal and Finnish parliamentary elections only people from his electoral district can vote for him. In the European elections the entire Finland is one election district - everyone is a potential voter. “It’s an interesting challenge, in deciding how much I should travel around or focus on core areas. That’s definitely a big difference between these elections.” He also mentions that the amount of candidates is much smaller, the parties can only nominate 20 candidates each. That makes the party consider their candidates much more carefully, in comparison to national parliamentary elections where hundreds of candidates can be nominated.

Filip has recently returned to Finland from his job at the US senate and has learned a lot about US history, politics and society. “That’s something I’m going to focus on in my campaign, that we have good connections with the US and keep up negotiations all the time.” Even with the current nationalistic politics in the US, he still finds that we share a lot of values with the US.

A significant difference between American and Finnish politics is the two-party system in the US. “It’s a lot more polarised, people are either on one side or the other - the middle is really difficult there.” He has seen that this has become even clearer since Trump’s election and that votes remain stronger along the party lines. It has become more difficult to reach across the aisle. He has also noticed that running a campaign in Finland is not dirty like in the US, where a lot of resources is spent on discrediting the opponent. “In that system, when it goes bad for the other party, it goes good for me. That’s not necessarily the case in Finland.” Finnish parties also need to stand well with each other for any potential government formations.

“It’s more interesting to follow, usually, the American politics. For example, the Mueller report was seen live by millions, people are so interested and it’s made more into a show. Here, it’s more boring because it’s just procedures.” However, he agrees that boring politics mean stable politics. It takes a while for things to change - be it fixing something that’s bad, or breaking something that’s good. “I think we could talk more openly about politics in Finland, too. Maybe that’s what I’m worried about in our system. We get a bit intimidated by politics here. We just say something bad every now and then about politicians, but we don’t really talk about issues.”

Filip suspects that’s one of the reasons behind the low election participation rates in Finland, and that the parties are seen as one grey mass. “Even in Sweden, politics is much more interesting than it is here. They have better debates, they talk more about values. They argue in a more open way, also in the parliament, that we usually don’t see here.” He adds that the media in Sweden does a better job of showing what’s going on in the politics, and politics is more closer to the people there.

This leads to less interest in debates and issues, which leads to less interest in elections, with comments about how you don’t feel like you know enough to vote and that your vote doesn’t matter anyway.

What would you say to someone that says “my vote doesn’t matter?”

“We as politicians get that all the time… We have these answers that we use all the time - “every vote matters” - and that’s true, of course, and you can see in the elections that have been very tight. Sometimes even few votes have decided who gets the last seat, or the majority. And in Finland your vote is never wasted completely. Even if your candidate is not elected, the vote goes to the party.” That way, he says, you can show support to a party, if you have one that you at least partly agree with. “If you don’t do it, you’re letting other people decide for you.”

He reiterates that every vote matters. “Your vote is as valuable as anybody else’s.” He compares it to taking actions for the climate - one individual can’t influence the outcome, the important thing is what everyone does together.

Politicians in Finland are easily accessible to voters. “You could call somebody, send an email or even go to a meeting - there’s a lot of events.” You could ask the candidate directly, or take use of the many elections compasses available that can give you clues on what candidate or party you sympathize with. “There’s so much to read and so much to see. Spend an hour or something to check into different parties - I think that most people have a clue of where they should start. Are you more right-winged or left-winged? Conservative or liberal? You can narrow it down from there.”

What would you do to inspire young people to vote?

In addition to the climate, Filip mentions studying, working and moving around to be an important issue for young voters. “A lot of us have been growing up with the European Union and we don’t know what it would be without it, but it has made our lives a lot easier.” Programs like ERASMUS is something that come from the EU and according to Filip, it’s essential to have programs that allow people to share experiences and learn from each other. “The basics of the EU is very good.”

Filip decided to run for the European parliament because he’s concerned about the strong nationalistic right-wing movement in Europe, which he finds dangerous since it’s mostly run on false information and a will to destroy what has been achieved. On the other hand, there’s a movement that wants to add more power to the EU. “I think the solution is somewhere in the middle. The EU should focus on what is essential and it was built on.” He has a vision on how Europe should develop and believes he has the right skills for it.

At the time of the interview, there were less than five weeks until the elections. “It’s a super-short time and it’s going to be very difficult to get media attention, too, because of the government negotiations.” A politician is always campaigning, and it can be tough to always appear full of energy and happy. He praises his campaign manager and campaign team, who volunteer their time and effort for this cause.

His message to Hankeiten’s readers is urging everyone to go vote, because the development of the single market is going to affect a lot of companies, and it’s important to have constructive voices between the extremes of an EU super-state or no EU at all. He says that even if you’re on the fence about the role of the EU, there still is a candidate for you. “If you find somebody you’re a bit interested in, but you’re not sure, just call or text them, and they’ll be happy to answer your questions.”