Foreign Ministry's press releases

Minister for Development and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will attend the Arctic Frontiers 2020 Conference in Tromsø on 27 January. It is one of the most important regular international events concentrating on Arctic cooperation.

Finland is preparing the reopening of its embassy in Manila, the Philippines. The Finnish embassy in Manila was closed in 2012 due to cuts in Foreign Service appropriations. Since then, Finland has handled its relations with the Philippines from Malaysia. Customers have been served at Finland’s Consular Office in Manila.

Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), will visit Finland on 27 January.

Finland is to allocate EUR 4 million to the UN Development Programme (UNDP) for use in rehabilitating people with disabilities, including seriously injured civilians, supporting livelihoods and improving attitudes towards people with disabilities in Syria. This is a follow-on from Finland's earlier support for the same purpose.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on 22–24 January 2020.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs will phase in a new visa system during February and March 2020. After its introduction, visa applications can be processed efficiently, fast and reliably.

Foreign Minister Haavisto will represent Finland at the Ministerial Conference of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in Brussels on 19 January. On the following day, 20 January, the Minister will attend the EU Foreign Affairs Council. The Foreign Affairs Council will focus on the Sahel and climate diplomacy.

When Finns travel abroad, the majority of trips go according to plan. In 2019, approximately 251,000 people registered their travel details at matkustusilmoitus.fi, a service maintained by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The most common travel destinations registered were Spain, Thailand and Turkey. In the event of a crisis situation of some kind, the Ministry sends information and guidance to those who had submitted travel details indicating they could be in the area affected. In 2019, there were 142 such crisis situations, most of which involved natural disasters.

Preparations for a new report on foreign and security policy are currently under way. As part of this process, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs will organise a series of panel discussions on topical foreign and security policy questions in cooperation with five Finnish universities in spring 2020.

On 15–16 January, Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will travel to Moscow for a co-chairs’ meeting of the Finnish-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation.