Aura Salla

When I was a child, I swore I would never become an entrepreneur.In the shadow of the 1990s recession, my father’s company went bankrupt.

Our home carried the weight of loss, and I carried with me the certainty that I would choose anotherpath. I promised myself that I would not step into the same cycle of risk and collapse.

Instead, I would dedicate myself to building a world where beginnings did not define endings.

Where everyone, regardless of their starting point, could reach for their own dream and shape a life intheir own image.

That was the moment I knew: I would become a politician. I began early. As a teenager, I joined the Lappeenranta youth council and later became a member of the National Coalition Party.

My convictions were already clear: freedom of the individual, faith in an open economy.

Around the same time, I discovered the European Union, and with it, the vision that would becomemy greatest dream: to one day serve as a Member of the European Parliament.In 2012, I ran my first campaign. I took on a large student loan, gathered friends to work beside mewithout pay, and poured everything into the efort.It was not enough. 

I was not elected. I was left with disappointment. And with debt.

In the 2014European elections, I tried again. Another loan, my team, another failure. It felt like a bankruptcy, likethe ground giving way beneath me.In 2019, history repeated itself. More debt, more unpaid work, theheaviest disappointment yet. All of it at the expense of my daily life.

My dream seemed further away than ever.

The next four years were long. I had built a diferent life, with a good salary and a home inBrussels, in the city of my heart.In 2023, 

I was elected to the Finnish Parliament. Two decades of efort finally crystallized in thatmoment. Yet the victory was bittersweet. It did draw me closer to my goal, but it also meant leavingbehind Brussels, the city that felt like home, the place where my heart still lived.

In the European project itself. I knew I had less than a year to rebuild everything again: the team, thecampaign, the momentum.I owed it to myself, to those who had supported me with their time and money,and to those who hadgiven their time freely to keep my dream alive.

I gave everything I had so that spring 2024 would not bring yet another collapse. 

When the 2024European elections came, twenty years of efort finally bore fruit. The door I had knocked on fordecades opened at last. I was finally elected to the EuropeanParliament.

Today, I live the dream that once seemed impossibly far. 

After all the disappointments, the debts, thelong nights of doubt, and the many times I had to rise again, I am here.

As a child, I swore I would never become an entrepreneur. 

Yet looking back now, I see that my pathwas built from the same elements: risk, sacrifice, collapse, and renewal.

Without the lessons of my childhood, I would not stand where I do today.

Because in the end, it was never only about me. It was about the promise I made long ago , that beginnings should not bind destinies.That every person deserves the chance to rise, to try again, and to build a life that truly reflects whothey are.That is why I chose politics. That is why I am here.