Foreign Ministry's press releases

The European Union and the United States will launch negotiations on a free trade agreement. “Ordinary Finns would benefit from the agreement as reductions in the prices of American products. For small and medium-sized companies, on the other hand, it would become easier than before to seek entry into the U.S. market, as unnecessary technical barriers were removed,” said Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb.

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja strongly condemns the nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on 12 February.

Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala will attend the Informal Meeting of Ministers for Development Cooperation being held in Dublin on 11 and 12 February. The agenda for the meeting includes, among others, the post-2015 international development goals and the crisis in Mali.

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will visit Latvia and Estonia on Monday 11 February.

The Team Finland network began its operations abroad on 1 February. The Team Finland network consists of 72 teams around the world which bring together all Finnish authorities, publicly funded organisations and other key parties with ties to Finland. Each team has a work programme and a designated coordinator with information on the network's local activities and services. A Team Finland website is available at team.finland.fi.

The EU Foreign Affairs Council will convene in Brussels on 31 January. The topics on the meeting agenda will include Mali, the EU Southern Neighbourhood, the relations between the EU and the United States, the Middle East peace process, Arctic cooperation, and Somalia and the Horn of Africa. The results of the EU-Russia summit, and the summit betweeen the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean will be discussed briefly. Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will represent Finland in the meeting.

By decision of Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala Finland will grant EUR 3.5 million of additional emergency assistance to those suffering from the crisis in Syria. Finland will announce its pledge in the International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria, chaired by UN in Kuwait.

This year the annual Munich Security Conference will be held from 1 to 3 February. The conference addresses global security issues and future security challenges of topical interest. This year the topics of discussion at the conference will include the euro crisis, the future of the EU and its Common Foreign and Security Policy, cyber security, and the crises in Mali and Syria.

Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb will give a speech at an event of the Swedish Moderate Party’s parliamentary group on Thursday 31 January. The topic of the speech will be economic challenges from the Finnish and Swedish perspective in particular.

The high-level conference of the international Leading Group of Innovative Financing for Development will be held in Helsinki on 6 February. Finland holds the presidency of the Group which aims to increase awareness of new financing mechanisms for development and different financing models, and to promote their introduction.