Current affairs

Border States met in Vilnius to discuss EU sanctions circumvention, especially trade routes and patters, and agreed on concrete common measures to further strengthen implementation of sanctions and prevention of sanctions circumvention.

Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs is planning to launch a tendering process for outsourcing its entry permit application submission services in 2024. As a preparation for the upcoming tendering process, the Ministry will survey the market in autumn 2023.

Finland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen will attend a meeting of Nordic and Baltic foreign ministers (NB8), to be held in Latvia 6–7 September.

Some of the prices of services provided by the Finnish missions and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs will rise. The new prices will enter into force on 1 September 2023.

Heads of Finland’s missions abroad and foreign policy leaders will meet again at the Annual Meeting of Heads of Mission in Helsinki on 21–23 August.

Finland will assume the presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) on 1 July 2023 for one year.

Comments on the Ministry for Foreign Affairs proposal may be given at lausuntopalvelu.fi until 8 August 2023.

Comments on the draft government proposal may be submitted to the lausuntopalvelu.fi service until 15 August 2023.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen will make her first visit to Sweden on Wednesday 21 June and Estonia on Thursday 22 June.

Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto's keynote address at the Fletcher School Commencement May 21, 2023.