Brasil
Finland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen will meet Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski in Helsinki on 14 March.
Finland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen will meet the Georgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ilia Darchiashvili, in Helsinki on 13 March. Georgia was granted the status of EU candidate country in December 2023.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs will begin cooperation negotiations at its Service Centre for Entry Permits in Kouvola. The Service Centre is a separate unit under the Ministry’s Consular Services. The negotiations concern all specialist officials working at the unit. The cooperation procedure will begin on 6 March 2024 and the negotiations will begin on 12 March 2024. The negotiations will last at least six weeks in accordance with the procedure.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has awarded EUR 1,063,000 in discretionary government grants to 19 civil society organisations (CSOs) operating in the field of foreign and security policy.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the United Nations will organise a Future Forum on the Least Developed Countries (LCD Future Forum) in Helsinki on 4–6 March. The Forum will discuss how to harness Finnish expertise in science, technology and innovation to foster development in the world’s least developed countries. Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen and Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio will attend the Future Forum.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen will visit Geneva, Switzerland, on 26 February. She will deliver Finland’s address to a High-Level Segment of the 55th session of the Human Rights Council.
The EU’s 13th package of sanctions is one of the largest agreed since the launch of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in terms of the number of sanctioned individuals. A total of 194 individuals and entities will be added to the list. They are individuals and companies that support Russian armed forces and individuals who have participated in the forced transfer of Ukrainian children. Export bans will be expanded to goods and technologies that contribute to Russia’s military and technological enhancement. Russian and third country companies that have been found to be involved in the circumvention of sanctions will be added to the list of export bans.
Finland stands with Ukraine now and in the future, says Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen in Finland’s national statement on the second anniversary on 24 February 2024 of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio will attend the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference on 26–29 February and the preceding meeting of EU trade ministers on 25 February in Abu Dhabi. Finland considers restoring the functioning of the WTO dispute settlement system to be a key theme at the Conference.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs’ humanitarian assistance decisions made in early part of the year emphasise Ukraine and the world’s largest refugee crises. The amount of humanitarian assistance now granted totals EUR 63 million.