Domestic politics in Finland, following the footsteps of Sweden, assim ilated the Social Democratic ideology, i.e. a society based on free market economics and strong governmental influence in many sectors. In practice this means paying fairly high taxes of your income, and on any possible item(e.g. goods such as cars, gasoline, alcohol, cigarettes, all of which have taxes of 50-90% of their price). This is compensated by a comprehen sive social security: good subsistence for the unemployed, aid for families with children, inexpensive public health service, and the feature we will be returning to, free education(including at the university level The last few years have been a period of peaceful, slow recovery from a recession at the end of the 1980's, interrupted by two major events that really are considered to reshape our history. The first was the fall of theSoviet Union. Many possible scenarios for its outcome, each of them more or less frightening, have been suggested. So far the most visible effect in Finland has been the warmly re-established relations with the Baltic coun tries, which gained independence during the process. The other important event is our joining the European Union. Finland became a member of EU on January 1st 1995, at the same time as Sweden and Austria. Precently we are going through a transition period during which many of EU regula- tions are gradually being introduced. Even the currency will be changed, Finnish marks will be replaced by Euros. Being part of EU makes it easier to work in other member countries. For a researcher it might mean many new opportunities. The real effects of this remain to be seen