MEP Satu Hassi

Listen to Satu Hassi's introduction here »

Born 1951, mother of two daughters, Licensiate of Technology, married

How can you gain credibility and simultaniously sustain your special chacarteristics in the middle of "old power"?

The crucial test of my youth was to lead the 1969 pupils' Workday collection  for the Mosambique Institute, which organised school and healthcare for the areas liberated from the Portuguese imperial power. Because of this, I, at the time 18 years old,  got into a hassle with the local leading newspaper, Aamulehti. The same autumn I got elected for the Teiniliitto (Teen League) board for the year 1970 and the next year I was the vice-chair.

The first half of the the 1970s I participated in the leftist student movement. 1971-1972 I was a delegate of Helsinki University Student Union and I studied economics at the Faculty of Social Sciences. After that I decided to move to Otaniemi to study engineering. There immediately I got active in movement for the administrative reform. For example, we organised lecture boycott in the autumn 1972 and in the spring 1973. I also got elected a delegate for the Student Union of the University of Technology. At the Socialist Student League board I was at the same time. The great energy crisis in the 1973 convinced me to choose electronics and energy technology for my major.

1975 I moved to Tampere, where I graduated 1979 and gave birth to two daughters 1976 and 1979. I tried "honest work", I started as the first female engineer at Oy Tampella Ab Tamrock in 1979. The year 1981 I fleed to the Tampere University of Technology to work as a substitute assistant. There I started to become familiar with alternative energy solutions.

At the same time I was active in womens' organisations and Women for Peace movement. In August 1983 I walked together with a nordic womens' group from New York to Washington to protest new, the so called, euro missales.

In 1984 I published my first novel. The same autumn I was elected for the Tampere City Council from the "Green Alternative Tampere List". The next autumn, 1985, I took a risk and started as a freelance author.

The latter half of 1980s I was a freelance author and green councillor at Tampere. At the council my biggest battle was the so called Tampella agreement at 1989.  Tampella is an old factory area in Tampere which was about to be demolished. We had a crushing defeat, but got the public support and won the case in the court. Now the Tampella factory area has a pretty good city plan and the scenery was also captured in the old 20 marks' note. The same autumn I was elected for the vice chair of the Green League. The year 1990 I wrote together with Pekka Sauri and Pauli Välimäki the first party program.

The spring 1991 I was elected to the parliament. I was the chair for the Green Parliamentary Group the years 1991-1993 and again at 1997. The things where I went into most were econimic and labour policy, energy policy, foreign policy and equality. The summer 1997 I was voted for the chair of the Green League. My term ended in 2001.

The summer 1999 I got the chance to start as a Minister of the Environment and Development Issues at the second Government of Paavo Lipponen. The April 2002 the parliament gave its blessing to build more nuclear power in Finland, which was an enormous disappointment for the greens. The Green League Council and Parliamentary Group considered the possibilities to continue the co-operation in the Government in a joint meeting the May 2002 and decided to leave.

The Greens stayed in the opposition in the next Jäätteenmäki Government, although the party was one of the winners in the 2003 elections. Before the European Parliament Elections I was the chair for the parliamentary group.

I have been cogitating a lot about the feminist, or generally alternative, viewpoint of the use of power. This theme is also present in my books. When I joined the greens, I defined the green perspective like this: we defend the values, that cannot be bought or measured in money. The female engineers and greens that work within the old power structure have the same basic problem. To make a change, you have to gain credibility in the eyes of the ones that hold the power. But how can you not turn into them and not lose your own original characteristics? This is not an easy task.

I consider my personal stregths to be verstaility, persistence and braveness to put myself on the line.