Summer Meetings | Keskustan Kaikkonen: The abolition of night duty in Kouvola must be cancelled

The center The parliamentary group met on Thursday for its summer meeting in Kouvola. Party chairman Antti Kaikkonen started the meeting in a manner befitting an opposition leader by criticizing the government’s austerity measures.

The center demands, among other things, that the government reverses its decision to abolish Kouvola’s night duty. Government made a decision its termination in the spring.

“The financial benefits of the government’s decision are rarely unclear, but the disadvantages are very clear. Everyone knows how it goes when ambulance journeys are significantly extended in an emergency at night. It’s about patient safety. And for good reason. Even about human lives,” Kaikkonen said.

The central competitor Perussuomalaiset will also gather for its summer meeting in Kouvola in a week. Kaikkonen noticed to remind that the ministers who prepared and made the decision were there.

“The center’s message is: Revoke your ill-advised decision to end the night shift. New consideration, better decision.”

Kaikkonen also criticized the government’s tightening of value added tax and cuts to the household allowance.

“Orpo’s government tightens the general value added tax above the high Nordic level, at a rapid pace in the middle of the year. The decision will raise prices and slow down the economy,” Kaikkonen reasoned.

“My proposal to the government is: Cancel the reduction of the household deduction and the new increases in value added tax, which are slowing down economic growth,” Kaikkonen said.

The government has decided to raise the value added tax from 24% to 25.5%. The center has previously proposed a level of 25 percent in its own alternative.

According to the decisions of the spring budget meeting, the government seeks a saving of one hundred million euros from the household deduction.

Center would also cancel the so-called one-hour train, according to Kaikkonen, and use the money, for example, to renovate the current bus network, Kaikkonen said.

“I don’t understand why the government necessarily wants to pour massive sums of money into Turku’s hourly train. I don’t understand at all.”

Parliamentary group chairman Antti Kurvinen criticized the government’s focus on the wrong things.

“Don’t misunderstand and be offended; I myself like to watch the Olympics on Yle. But I dare to say this: Finland has much bigger problems and more urgent issues than Yleisradio’s programs or the arrangements for the opening of the Olympic Games,” he said.

“The grouping of representatives of the governing parties around these issues is an attempt to shift attention away from broken promises, deepening everyday grievances and failed politics. I believe the people will see through this desperate game.”

Like Kaikkonen, Kurvinen listed actions that the center would do differently compared to the government’s adjustment actions.

Curvy Like Kaikkonen, he took up, among other things, the value added tax increases.

According to him, the center would also, among other things, implement a tax credit for investments for small and medium-sized companies as well and tax the profits left in the company less than those distributed out.

Kurvinen also repeated the center’s previous proposal that eastern Finland should be made a special economic zone, according to Kurvinen, for ten years.

“Eastern Finland needs a response.”

According to Kurvinen, it is clear that in Finland you have to live for several years “with your mouth full.”

However, Finland will not rise by cutting to get out of cutting, Kurvinen said.

“And increasing taxes does not stimulate the economy.”

The only way to turn the economic situation into growth is to achieve decent growth, he said. According to Kurvinen, growth should double compared to forecasts.

Correction 10.42: Changed the wording of what Kurvinen said about increasing the value added tax. Kurvinen did not talk about canceling it, but that the tax should not be raised above the Nordic level.