Free market Katainen, welfare state Halonen

As a part of the Financial Times's Finland report, they published a complimentary interview with Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen and a slightly less positive interview with President Tarja Halonen. (My profile of Katainen is here.)

The notable difference in Coalitionist Katainen's and Social Democrat Halonen's messages is that where he wants to reform the Finnish welfare model, she wants to export it to the rest of the EU. Those aims aren't necessarily in conflict with each other, but I do think they say something about the difference in attitudes between the pair.

In other news, Halonen's roof leaks. I'm surprised the fact wasn't used as a metaphor for something or other.