Foreign Ministry's press releases

Overall evaluation of programmes with Nicaragua under preparation in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja extends warm congratulations to the winner of the Nobel Peace Price 2013, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), for the recognition it received. The OPCW’s long-term work for the implementation and overseeing of the International Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) deserves this honour. Finland has been supporting the OPCW since its establishment.

Cabinet Committee on Foreign and Security Policy discussed the situation in Syria

Finland’s goal is to develop the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy in a more comprehensive direction, said Foreign Minister Tuomioja at a seminar in Helsinki.

During the past two decades, globally only four per cent of the signatories of peace agreements have been women. Finland applies various ways to promote the full and equal participation of women in peace processes and mediation, said Foreign Minister Tuomioja at a seminar in Kirkkonummi.

Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb will take a Team Finland trip, with an aim to promote exports and internationalisation of Finnish companies, to India on 14-18 October. He will be accompanied by a business delegation of 30 people, including representatives from such sectors as energy and environmental technology; mining, metals and construction industry; information technology; health and well-being services; and financing. The delegation was assembled by Finpro.

Minister of Finance and World Bank Governor Jutta Urpilainen is set to travel to Washington to attend the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund IMF on 10–12 October 2013. Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala will also be attending the meetings on 9–11 October 2013.

Finland is prepared to support the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, Minister for Foreign Affairs Erkki Tuomioja stated when he spoke at the 40th Anniversary of the Finnish Institute for Verification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (VERIFIN) on 4 October.

Deputy Permanent Representative of Finland to the United Nations, Ambassador Janne Taalas was elected Chair of the UN Administrative and Budgetary Committee in New York on 1 October as representative of the Western European and Others Group.

The economy of countries in Africa is growing briskly and the African Development Fund plays an important role in maintaining and continuing this trend. Representatives of the donor and recipient countries agreed in Paris last week on the thirteenth replenishment of the African Development Fund (ADF-13).