Foreign Ministry's press releases

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.

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.