Foreign Ministry's press releases

Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Anthony Lake will visit Finland on 6–7 May 2013 and participate in the meeting of UNICEF National Committees, to be held in Helsinki. During his visit, Lake will meet President of the Republic Sauli Niinistö and Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala. In these meetings, topics of discussion will include post-2015 global development goals and the operations of UNICEF in crisis situations.

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will pay a working visit to India on 6-7 May. Tuomioja will meet Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid with whom he will discuss international and regional issues of topical interest and the relations between Finland and India.

More than 6,500 ninth-graders in comprehensive school will compete in the national EU quiz this spring on 3 May. This is the third time the competition is held. More than 100 schools, nine of them Swedish-language schools, are participating. Schools from Enontekiö in Northern Finland to Fuengirola in Spain have registered for the competition. The most registrants are from Uusimaa and Southwest Finland.

Facilitator for the conference on the establishment of a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction, Under-Secretary of State Jaakko Laajava gave an interim report to the States parties of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in Geneva on 29 April 2013.

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will attend the Nordic Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held in Sandhamn in the Stockholm archipelago on 2–3 May. Sweden holds the chairmanship of the Nordic foreign and security policy cooperation this year.

Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb will make a Team Finland trip to Columbia and Mexico. This trade mission will take place on 5–9 May. Minister Stubb will be accompanied by a business delegation of nearly 20 companies engaged in the metals, engineering, forestry, safety, meteorology, finance, ICT and consulting sectors. The delegation is compiled by Finpro. The trade mission to Mexico is made together with Estonia.

Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala will visit Tajikistan from 28 April to 2 May. The trip is associated with Finland’s development cooperation in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, which from the year 2014 will focus on Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the poorest countries of Central Asia.

Dagfinn Høybråten, the newly appointed Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers, is visiting Finland on 24–25 April.

The EU Foreign Affairs Council will convene in Luxembourg on 22 April. The meeting agenda includes energy issues in external relations, EU Eastern Partnership and Southern Neighbourhood, Mali and Myanmar. Finland’s representative in the meeting will be Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja.

On 19 April, Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will participate in an Arctic seminar titled “Forum for Arctic Climate Change and Security”, to be held in Stockholm. The event is organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).