Foreign Ministry's press releases

The EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) will meet in Brussels on 18 February. Finland's representative at the meeting will be Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini. The topics on the meeting agenda include Ukraine, Syria and the Horn of Africa. At lunch, foreign ministers will discuss the situation in Venezuela. Minister Soini will also attend an EU-Ukraine breakfast meeting, hosted by Denmark and Ukraine. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin will be present, too.

On 14 February 2019, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) gave its judgment in a case concerning Finland. The Court held that there had been no violation of Article 6 (right to a fair hearing) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Anne-Mari Virolainen will make a Team Finland visit to Mexico on 14–15 February. The Minister will be accompanied by a Team Finland delegation.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has granted EUR 470,000 in discretionary government transfers to civil society organisations’ (CSOs) Europe information. In addition, EUR 100,000 was granted to the provision of information relating to the European elections.

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Anne-Mari Virolainen will visit Washington DC on 11–12 February.

On Tuesday 12 February, Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini will visit Moscow and have a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

A working group consisting of development and education specialists proposes that Finland should adopt education as one of its development cooperation and development policy priorities and significantly increase its funding for the cause. Ministers Anne-Mari Virolainen and Sanni Grahn-Laasonen support the proposal. They have decided to set up a broad-based steering group to promote the working group's recommendations and to foster closer cooperation between operators in the field in Finland.

Minister Anne Berner will attend a meeting of Ministers for Nordic Cooperation in Reykjavik on 6–7 February 2019.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has appointed Elna Nykänen Andersson to serve as Press Officer at Finland's Embassy in Stockholm. The three-year term will start on 4 March 2019. She will transfer to the post from content agency OTW.