How does it feel to be in a party where you don't have to compromise on your values?

On Friday we launched, in honour of the National Coalition Party’s congress, the vaihdavihreisiin.fi (“switch to the Greens”) campaign, whose aim is to lower the bar for switching from the Coalition Party (and from voting for it) to the Greens. The campaign has been built together with dozens of active Green economic experts. One part of the campaign is to highlight market-green voices, and the names attached include Osmo Soininvaara, Atte Harjanne, Tuuli Kousa, and Kalle Euro.

How did the campaign start?

The campaign traces back to May 2026, the week before the Green Party congress, when I founded the WhatsApp group “Vihreät sosiaaliliberaalit yhdistykää” (“Green social liberals, unite”). Behind it was the experience that the party’s social liberals had been scattered and underrepresented in recent party-internal debate, while other currents were ever more loudly on display. Others noticed the same, including Heikki Pursiainen, who criticised our campaign for exactly that point. (Pursiainen is right on that count — it is precisely why we made the campaign. He did, however, miss in his critique that the Greens have had several visible economic openings during 2026.) As someone for whom the Greens have been represented above all by figures like Jyrki Kasvi and Osmo Soininvaara, I was looking for a change.

I was clearly not the only one thinking this way. Within the first days, more than a hundred like-minded Greens joined the group. Since then the discussion has continued almost without pause day after day. The group’s stated shared goal is to strengthen the Greens’ position in the Finnish party field especially on economic questions, where the Coalition Party has had it far too easy. The Greens’ economic lines have, despite the image, been very market-friendly. Or as Sofia Virta said at the start of her term as party chair: “The Greens are Finland’s leading market-liberal party”.

In the group also grew the idea of creating a site for other social liberals, where we explain why the Greens are the best option for them. We also wrote the Market-Green Manifesto, which without compromise describes the Greens’ core values. It also makes clear how those values connect to liberalism. It is worth a read.

The site and the manifesto were ready right on time, and on Friday 5 June 2026 the vaihdavihreisiin.fi campaign launched alongside the Coalition Party congress.

The campaign has received an enormous amount of positive feedback, from the right, the left, and the centre — and from non-voters. Many people have joined our open WhatsApp group, and thousands have visited the site since launch. We were clearly not the only ones who think expanding the Greens toward the right side of the political compass is a good idea. We even drew support from Paavo Arhinmäki. Helsingin Sanomat and Verde magazine also covered the campaign.

Suomen Kuvalehti’s recent analysis confirmed that the Greens have been gaining support from the right. To the left we have been losing votes, even though the party has been communicating strongly on themes typically associated with the left (whether these themes genuinely belong to left-wing politics is, of course, a question on which one can easily disagree). There was clearly demand for market-green communication.

Finland’s party field needs at least one genuinely social-liberal alternative. The Coalition Party could have been one, but by now it is crystal clear to everyone that the door is, for the time being, closed. So the options left for blue-green liberals are to vote in the Coalition Party along a line set by conservatives — or face the consequences. I would much rather see all of you voting in line with your values, in the Greens.

Why switch to the Greens?

The Greens’ shared values are the protection of nature and the environment, and human rights. It is therefore in the interest of both the environment and human rights that we grow both from the left and from the right. Our support was at its peak under Ville Niinistö’s chairmanship, when the Sipilä government made historically short-sighted cuts to education. Back then it was not about us being the best left-wing party. It was about being the best education party. The current Coalition-led government is now pursuing the same kind of policy as Sipilä’s.

In the Greens you may vote for women’s rights and for the defence of nature and animals. In the Greens education promises are kept. It is worth asking yourself: how would it feel to be in a party where you do not have to explain your actions?

Where can I read more about market-green economics?

I have written about my speech and amendment proposal at the congress in the blog post Greens – The True Defenders of the Market Economy. All my economy-related writing is in the economy category, and all Greens-related posts are in the green party category.