Current affairs

The EU General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) will meet in Brussels on 27 and 28 July. The main themes of the meeting are the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and the situation in Somalia, Iran and Georgia. Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb and Minister of Migration and European Affairs Astrid Thors will represent Finland at the Council meeting.

Gregory Vashadze, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Georgia, will visit Finland on 22 April. He will have talks with Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen and Minister of Migration and European Affairs Astrid Thors.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, said today 22 December he deeply regretted that the 56 OSCE participating States had failed to reach consensus on the future of the OSCE Mission to Georgia.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, said today he was satisfied with the discussions on Georgia held in Geneva on 17-18 December.

The OSCE, UN and EU co-chaired discussions on Georgia in Geneva on Thursday, 18 December, at which participants made progress toward agreeing working-level mechanisms to tackle security-related incidents in the region.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, said today he welcomed the important step forward taken in the discussions on Georgia in Geneva, co-chaired by the OSCE, UN and EU.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Tuesday,14 October to discuss Wednesday’s diplomatic-level discussions on Georgia.

The French Presidency of the European Union has invited representatives from the EU, the UN and the OSCE to a ministerial-level meeting to discuss the crisis in Georgia on 14 October 2008 in Geneva. The EU will be represented by Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, High Representative Javier Solana and Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and the United Nations by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb will take part in the meeting.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, said today he welcomed reports from the Organization's military monitoring officers in Georgia that Russian troops had withdrawn posts that they had set up near South Ossetia after the August conflict.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, condemned today recent violent incidents in Georgia and called for calm.