Current affairs

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto visited Kyiv, Ukraine, on 28 November together with Nordic and Baltic foreign ministers. In Kyiv, the foreign ministers met the President and the Foreign Minister of Ukraine, among others, and reaffirmed their countries’ firm support to Ukraine.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will attend a meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Bucharest from 29 to 30 November.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs requests opinions on the draft Decree of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on Fees for Services Produced by the Foreign Service in 2023. The consultation round will be open until 7 December 2022. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs proposes an increase of EUR 20 to the fee for the EU Emergency Travel Document (ETD) issued to EU citizens.

Recent crises underline the importance of development cooperation as a key instrument of foreign and security policy, according to Finland’s Development Policy Results Report submitted to Parliament on 9 November.

Finland will support the grain shipments of the World Food Programme (WFP) from Ukraine to Somalia. At the same time, Finland will increase its humanitarian assistance to the Horn of Africa, where more than 20 million people are in need of urgent food aid.

China has reported Covid-19 –infections all over the country during autumn 2022. The spreading of the infections is controlled with strict lockdowns and restrictions on travelling. The mass testing is continuing in Beijing and Shanghai as well as in other cities. Beijing is implementing more restrictions on entering the city than other cities.

Visa Application Centres of Finland in China will reopen in November 2022 with limited capacity.

On 29 September 2022, the Finnish Government issued a resolution to significantly restrict the entry of Russian tourists into Finland. The entry restrictions will enter into force on 30 September 2022 at 00.00, and they will remain in force until further notice.