Foreign Ministry's press releases

Finland holds the Chairpersonship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2025. OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen has appointed Christoph Späti as her Special Representative for the South Caucasus.

EU foreign ministers will convene in Brussels on 27 January. Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen will represent Finland at the meeting.

Assistant Secretary-General Kamal Kishore, the Head of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), will visit Finland from 27 to 28 January 2025.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen will visit Vienna on 23 January. She will present the programme for Finland’s OSCE Chairpersonship to the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has representatives from the organization’s 57 participating States and 11 Partners for Co-operation.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the missions abroad provided consular services to approximately 205,000 customers last year. Over the course of the year, the Ministry’s 24/7 service was contacted around 6,800 times in total.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen and Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio will travel to the 55th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which will take place in Davos, Switzerland, on 20–24 January. President of the Republic Alexander Stubb will also attend the WEF.

The new Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Feridun Sinirlioğlu, will visit Helsinki on 16 January at the invitation of Finland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen, who is currently OSCE Chairperson-in-Office.

Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen will visit The Hague on 15 January and speak at a conference on sanctions compliance and enforcement hosted by the Netherlands. She will also have discussions with the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Caspar Veldkamp and representatives of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio will visit Sweden on 15–17 January. He will be accompanied by a large delegation of Finnish businesses.

On 8 January, Finland's Minister for Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen visited Kyiv, Ukraine, where she met President Volodymyr Zelensky, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha, and Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Ruslan Stefanchuk. This was Minister Valtonen's first visit to a country as Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).