Foreign Minister Tuomioja to attend joint Nordic and Baltic Foreign Minister meeting
Press release 251/2005
23 August, 2005
Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will participate in the meeting of the NB8 Group of the Nordic and Baltic states to be held in Bornholm, Denmark on 25 – 26 August.
The main topics on the meeting agenda are the future of Kosovo, the EU Neighbourhood Policy, and the UN matters in the coming autumn season, particularly the approaching UN Summit and the related issues of the UN reform project and the UN’s 60th anniversary. Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Kosovo, Danish Søren Jessen-Petersen, will participate in the handling of the Kosovo question as a special guest. Discussion about the Neighbourhood Policy gives the participating countries a chance to examine how the reforms are advancing, for instance, in Ukraine, Belarus and the states of the Southern Caucasus.
Other current matters to be handled in the Bornholm meeting include, for instance, implementation of the Aceh peace agreement, and the high level Helsinki Conference concerning management of globalisation to be held on 7 – 9 September. In addition, the ministers will discuss the possibility of closer practical cooperation between the Nordic and Baltic states in the arena of foreign affairs administration.
In Bornholm, there will also be a short Nordic Foreign Minister Meeting, in which the ministers will approve a recommended plan of action for Nordic consular cooperation in crisis and emergency situations. This project was launched as a result of the experiences from the tsunami disaster.
There have been NB8 ministerial meetings already since the year 1993. In recent years, the meeting has sought to focus on selected questions on the agenda of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Additional information: Counsellor Ari Tasanen, Unit for Central and Southeastern Europe, tel. +358 9 160 55630, and, as concerns Nordic crisis cooperation, Director Pekka Hyvönen, Unit for Consular Services, tel. +358 9 160 55739