Current affairs

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will attend the Nordic Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held in Sandhamn in the Stockholm archipelago on 2–3 May. Sweden holds the chairmanship of the Nordic foreign and security policy cooperation this year.

Dagfinn Høybråten, the newly appointed Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers, is visiting Finland on 24–25 April.

Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen and Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb host an informal meeting, Lapland Retreat 2013, on 22–24 March in Saariselkä, Lapland. Informal discussions focus on the future challenges of Europe.

The Foreign Ministers of Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will meet in Vilnius on 3-4 September. Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will attend the so called Nordic-Baltic 8 Foreign Ministers meeting.

Meeting of Nordic Foreign and Defence Ministers will take place on 2-3 September in Bodø, Norway. The Finnish participants are Minister for Foreign Affairs Erkki Tuomioja and Minister of Defence Carl Haglund.

Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala will participate in the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Danish International Development Assistance (DANIDA) in Copenhagen. DANIDA operates under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.

Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala, has invited her Nordic colleagues to meet in Helsinki on Monday, 23 January. A common Nordic policy on major development policy and development cooperation issues will be forged at the meeting.

The newly-appointed Foreign Minister of Denmark Villy Søvndal will meet Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja on his visit to Finland on 10 November.

The Nordic and Baltic countries have today signed a memorandum of understanding on the locating of diplomats at each other’s missions abroad. The memorandum will make it easier for the Nordic and Baltic countries to maintain a diplomatic presence around the world by enabling flexible and cost-effective solutions.

The NB8 Foreign Ministers’ meeting, gathering together the Foreign Ministers of the Nordic and Baltic States, will take place in Helsinki on 30 August. Finland is the country coordinating NB8 cooperation in 2011.