Current affairs

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

As of 15 May, the email addresses of the staff members at Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs and missions abroad will be, as a rule, in the format [email protected] The change is part of the overall harmonisation of the Government’s email addresses.

Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Transport and Communications Minna Kivimäki has been nominated a candidate for the post of Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). There are altogether seven candidates for the post.

Our customer service booking system is changing. From May onwards, we will open the booking for consular customer service slots on the third Monday of the month. The slots will be opening from 14:00 onwards. The appointments will always be for following month’s slots, so June slots will be available on 15.5. For more information regarding our consular services, please click the link: https://finlandabroad.fi/web/gbr/travelling-and-services

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs completes Finland’s relief effort in Sudan on Thursday 27 April.

During May the Finnish Embassy in London will be closed on both Finnish and British Bank Holidays.

The Embassy of Finland will process passport and ID card applications in Edinburgh on 6th and 7th June 2023. Appointment schedule is fully booked at the moment.

The Good Friday Agreement was signed on 10 April 1998 after lengthy negotiations, bringing to an end three decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

Finland will join NATO on Tuesday 4 April. We collected the daily events and links to live webcasts from Brussels.

On 4 April, Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will deposit Finland's instrument of accession to the North Atlantic Treaty. Minister Haavisto will deposit the instrument of accession in Brussels with the Government of the United States. Finland will become a NATO member country at the moment of the deposit. Minister Haavisto will also represent Finland at the meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs starting on the same day.