Press releases of Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland

Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will chair Foreign Affairs Council meeting on trade issues in Brussels on 21 November. EU trade ministers will discuss the WTO, EU-US trade relations, and the report on the implementation of EU free trade agreements.

Grete Faremo, Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Project Services UNOPS, will visit Finland on 22 November.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit Rwanda on 21–22 November. He will give a statement and answer questions on behalf of the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini at the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly in Kigali, Rwanda on 21 November. Minister Haavisto will also have bilateral meetings during the visit.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit Brussels on 19 November to attend a meeting of the European Economic Area Council. Haavisto will represent the European Union in the meeting in his capacity as Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the country holding the Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Sweden's Minister for Foreign Trade and Nordic Affairs Anna Hallberg will visit Finland on 19 November.

On 14 November 2019, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) gave its judgment concerning Finland in the case of the return of an asylum seeker to Iraq.

On 14 November, Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto will attend an extraordinary meeting the Foreign Ministers of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland will launch an online service containing all the reports of Finnish missions abroad from 1918 to 1926.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will participate in the second Paris Peace Forum, which will be held in Paris on 12 November.

The EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) will meet in Brussels on 11 November. Finland will be represented by Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto. The meeting will be followed by an informal lunch with the Prime Minister of Sudan, Abdalla Hamdok.

Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will attend the Nairobi Summit on the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD25) from 12 to 14 November. The Conference will mark the 25th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development held in 1994 in Cairo.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit Tanzania on 7–8 November. He will meet President John P. Magufuli and Minister for Foreign Affairs Palamagamba Kabudi and attend the African-Nordic foreign ministers’ meeting in Dar es Salaam. The meeting is expected to gather representatives from the Nordic countries and about fifteen African countries.

Launched by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Salam project that promotes peace and reconciliation brought together young people interested in social influence. During the autumn, workshops were organised for young people to discuss peace building and the means of communication to promote reconciliation. For Iraqis, a workshop was organised in Erbil while in Afghanistan young people gathered in Kabul.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit India on 4–6 November. He will meet the Minister of External Affairs of India S. Jaishankar and Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi. A special item on the agenda is a visit to Chennai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where Haavisto will attend the opening of the new production facility of KONE, visit one of India’s top universities IIT Madras and meet the state’s leaders. The minister’s delegation includes representatives of Finnish companies, universities and civil society organisations.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit Ukraine on 31 October– 1 November. He will meet with Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko, experts advising Ukraine in reforms and representatives of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM). Haavisto will also visit the contact line in eastern Ukraine together with Deputy Foreign Minister Yehor Bozhok.

Finland aims to support the Green Climate Fund (GCF) by EUR 100 million in 2020–2023. The pledge was announced in connection with the first official Pledging Conference on 25 October in Paris.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will participate in the International solidarity conference on the Venezuelan refugee and migrant crisis, co-hosted by the EU and the UN in Brussels on 28–29 October 2019.

The series will consist of four separate discussion events to be held in October and November. The themes will look into the role of diaspora communities in Finland in the reconstruction and maintenance of peace in their former home countries. Two of the events will focus on Somalia, one will discuss Afghanistan and one will deal with Iraq and Syria.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will be on an official visit to Vilnius on 28 October 2019. He will meet with the Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis and hold discussions with Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs participates in the Helsinki Book Fair with a varied, fact-based programme. Also present at the fair will be Minister of Nordic Cooperation Thomas Blomqvist and Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto. A new, updated version of Europe Information’s book on basic facts about the EU (EU-perusteos / EU basfakte) will be published at the fair.