Foreign Ministry's press releases

The EU General Affairs and External Relations Council will organise an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday 13 August in Brussels over the situation in Georgia. Finland’s representative in the meeting will be Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, who will travel to Brussels from Moscow on Tuesday evening.

The Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb travels to Tbilisi today, 10. August 2008 together with the Chairman of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the European Union, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France. They will continue from Tbilisi to Moscow. Meetings with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov among others are foreseen.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, urges parties to the Georgian-Ossetian conflict to end all military action.

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen is satisfied with the government decision to impose vignette fees on heavy highway traffic, which will be compensated to domestic haulers by lowering the vehicle tax.

Fighting in South Ossetia, Georgia, escalated last night. Therefore, today 8 August Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb has continued the talks with the parties of the conflict and other key actors. In addition, Minister Stubb has decided to deploy his Special Envoy Ambassador Heikki Talvitie immediately to Georgia, and he is also himself getting prepared to travel to the region.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, expressed serious concern today about the deteriorating situation in the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict and said he deplored the fact that a planned meeting of Georgian and South Ossetian representatives had not taken place. 

Former Norwegian Defence and Foreign Minister Thorvald Stoltenberg is to visit Finland on 6-11 August.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, condemned the latest escalation of violation including overnight shooting in the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict.

Niklas Bruun, Professor at the University of Helsinki, was appointed member of the UN Committee monitoring the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) at an election held yesterday, 30 July, in New York.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland proposed in its draft budget for 2009 a total of EUR 1,175.8 million to be granted for the administrative branch. The draft budget proposed for the operating expense item to be granted EUR 202.2 million, for actual development cooperation EUR 730.9 million, for crisis management EUR 77.4 million and for cooperation with neighbouring areas EUR 20.5 million.