Centre Party proposes shifting alcohol, school holidays and tax powers to municipalities

The Centre Party's new model seeks to transform Finland's welfare regions into broad self-governing entities that can decide on lower-tier road maintenance, hunting permits and nature-reserve management. Municipalities would gain authority over alcohol licences, school holiday and work-time arrangements, and beach-construction conditions. Financially, the plan calls for cutting state subsidies, expanding municipal tax bases by raising the capital-tax and corporate-tax portions, and shifting all natural-resource tax income to local governments.

Regions facing severe fiscal deficits could be placed into debt restructuring, forgiving past deficits if they balance their budgets. Constitutional changes would be required to let these regions issue regulations, and the scheme would be tested in a limited number of regions before wider rollout.