Press releases of Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland

Foreign Minister Haavisto will represent Finland at the Ministerial Conference of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in Brussels on 19 January. On the following day, 20 January, the Minister will attend the EU Foreign Affairs Council. The Foreign Affairs Council will focus on the Sahel and climate diplomacy.

When Finns travel abroad, the majority of trips go according to plan. In 2019, approximately 251,000 people registered their travel details at matkustusilmoitus.fi, a service maintained by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The most common travel destinations registered were Spain, Thailand and Turkey. In the event of a crisis situation of some kind, the Ministry sends information and guidance to those who had submitted travel details indicating they could be in the area affected. In 2019, there were 142 such crisis situations, most of which involved natural disasters.

Preparations for a new report on foreign and security policy are currently under way. As part of this process, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs will organise a series of panel discussions on topical foreign and security policy questions in cooperation with five Finnish universities in spring 2020.

On 15–16 January, Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will travel to Moscow for a co-chairs’ meeting of the Finnish-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation.

The EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) will meet in Brussels on 10 January. Finland will be represented by Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto. The meeting will focus on the situation in Iraq and on ways to de-escalate tensions in the region. The current situation in Libya will also be discussed.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini will attend the Session of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe at Elsinore, Denmark, on 17–18 May 2018.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs confirms that two Finnish children from the al-Hol camp are in the care of the authorities, who aim to repatriate them to Finland. The authorities will organise a press conference in Helsinki at a date to be announced later.

The public authorities are preparing to repatriate two Finnish children from the Syrian al-Hol camp. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs will provide detailed information once the children are safe and in the care of the Finnish authorities. Information on their arrival in Finland will be communicated at the earliest opportunity.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs today requested the police to investigate how certain internal documents wound up in the public domain.

Finland will contribute EUR 114 million to the replenishment of the International Development Association (IDA), which is part of the World Bank Group. IDA supports the world's poorest countries.

Thomas Greminger, Secretary General of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), has appointed Ambassador Tuula Yrjölä from Finland as Director of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre (CPC) and Deputy Secretary General, starting from the beginning of 2020. The position is an important post at the OSCE Secretariat in Vienna.

Finland will allocate EUR 8 million from development cooperation funds to the work of the United Nations Children's Fund in Nepal. The funding of UNICEF's country programme will improve the quality of teaching for the next three years, as well as the water and sanitation services of communities and schools.

Finland will allocate EUR 3 million through the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF to supporting the most vulnerable children’s access to education in Syria.

Finland will contribute EUR 68.4 million to the replenishment of the African Development Fund (AfDF), which is the concessional window of the African Development Bank Group. Finland is also preparing a loan of EUR 80 million for the AfDF. The AfDF supports the continent's poorest countries.

According to a new UN assessment, 168 million people in 53 countries are currently in need of emergency relief. The guidelines for persons with disabilities in humanitarian crises, supported by Finland, have recently been adopted at both EU and UN levels.

At the end of the Conference on Business and Human Rights, held by Finland in Brussels on 2 December, Minister of Labour Timo Harakka and State Secretary Johanna Sumuvuori published an Agenda for Action for the EU.

A bug bounty project provides opportunities for information security researchers and hackers to examine, within a set of defined boundaries, the information security of selected services on the Internet. The protective measures of the targeted systems will not be opened for the duration of the project. 

Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will visit Washington, the Unites States on 3 to 4 December. During his visit, he will meet United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and other representatives of the administration. He will also visit the US Congress.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs will organise a conference to advance EU-level discussions on how businesses can better take human rights into account in their own activities, in the activities of their partners and in their supply chains. Minister of Employment Timo Harakka will open and close the conference.