A contract for a good society
Finland’s social contract is broken. It is being broken by those for whom nothing is ever enough.
Antton Rönnholm is a Social Democratic candidate for the Finnish Parliament in the Finland Proper constituency in the 2027 parliamentary election. He lives in Naantali, served as Secretary General of the Social Democratic Party of Finland from 2017 to 2023, and has worked at the International Labour Organization in Geneva.
The welfare contract
An individual is most free in a society where we can fail, burn out or fall ill without fearing that everything collapses. Public trust in health and social care has collapsed — and trust is the currency of the contract.
The skills and growth contract
50–75 per cent of economic growth is explained by human capital. In fifteen years Finland has fallen from the top of the OECD higher-education comparison to below the average. Investment in education is investment, not expenditure.
The security contract
Security is not built on external defence alone. Extreme economic inequality is a threat to internal security. An open society is not a weakness — it is our core strength.
Why me, why now?
I have followed politics since childhood and worked in and around it my entire adult life: six years in Brussels, the same again as Secretary General of the Social Democratic Party, and most recently at the International Labour Organization in Geneva.
Liberal democracy is under pressure. The far right is rising across Europe. Russia is waging war in the heart of Europe, and the United States is withdrawing from its role as the anchor of the West. When you see where our world is heading, everyone has to choose: watch from the sidelines, or act. I cannot watch from the sidelines, and neither should you.
Finland Proper is not the backyard of Finland or of Europe. It is Finland’s western gateway and the heart of its maritime industry — the Meyer shipyard and the marine cluster build vessels that few others in Europe can. I led the region’s EU office in Brussels and know what European investment and networks can mean here.
What I stand for
A social contract is not a document written once and left on a shelf. It is the foundation of democracy: power is legitimate when it serves those who surrendered it. If it stops serving them, the contract has to be renewed.
An individual is most free in a society where you can fail, burn out or fall ill without fearing that everything collapses. That is the core of freedom — and the reason all three contracts above are parts of the same promise: we look after one another, because a society is only as strong as its weakest member.