The EU Presidency Agenda taking shape
One month before the beginning of the Finnish EU Presidency, the Government Communications Unit organised a seminar, which, in addition to launching the website and the visual image for the Presidency, also tackled some of the key issue categories of the Presidency.
European Affairs Minister Paula Lehtomäki, who opened the event, reminded that it is the duty of each country holding the Presidency to carry forward the common, inherited agenda. In addition, just like any other President country, also Finland has its own objectives and priorities. A successful Presidency is a visiting card for many years to come. Lehtomäki pointed out that people in Brussels still remember Finland's previous, very successful Presidency in autumn 1999. "I believe that our forthcoming Presidency will succeed at least as well," Lehtomäki confirmed.
Jari Luoto, Under Secretary of State for EU Affairs from the Government Secretariat for Finland's EU Presidency, summarised as the central themes for the Finnish EU Presidency the future of the Union, European competitiveness, the cooperation in legal and internal affairs, the external relations of the Union, and the EU enlargement. The questions representing the Ministry for Foreign Affairs' field of operations that were introduced more closely in the seminar were the external relations and the ASEM Summit.
Wide-ranging external relations agenda
In the external relations, Finland has a global agenda, but, in addition, we have to be prepared to almost any kind of surprising situation, Laura Kakko, Deputy Director General of the Department for Europe, started her lecture. "Lucky for us, the external relations is the one EU sector that gets the unambiguous support of the EU citizens," Kakko pointed out. According to Kakko, the contribution of Finnish embassies in managing the wide-ranging agenda is crucial. The embassies are actively monitoring what is happening in their host countries and inform the Finnish State Administration about the developments. Kakko underscored the importance of cooperation with the EU institutions, the Member States, as well as other international organisations.
The list of priorities relating to external relations is indeed long for the Presidency. The concretisation of the EU-Russia cooperation and the enforcement of the Russian engagement in the cooperation culminates in a summit meeting in November. As far as the Northern Dimension is concerned, there is the decision about a new framework document to be made, and the debate related to the EU enlargement will automatically continue also during Finland's Presidency. In the Western Balkans, the EU has to get prepared for assuming its role in Kosovo in the arenas of both military crisis management and police operations, and in the trade policy the sights are on having the Doha round of WTO negotiations completed. Within the field of development policy, Kakko brought up particularly the implementation of the Africa strategy and the development policy statement, both outlined in 2005, as well as the importance of keeping the themes of trade & development and migration & development at the centre of discussion. Efforts are also being made in order to enhance tangible cooperation with the United States and Canada particularly within the fields of economy and climate policy.
ASEM 6 – the biggest international meeting ever held in Finland
There will be 39 delegations participating in the ASEM Summit, to be held in Helsinki in September. That will bring approximately 2,000 delegation members and an estimated 1,000 members of the press to Helsinki. It is difficult to predict the precise agenda of the Summit – celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Asia-Europe cooperation forum – since ASEM is about strengthening the relations and participation in multilateral dialogue, said Hanna Lehtinen, Head of the ASEM6 Secretariat. "The agenda lives with the current events, but at this point the topics with the highest priority include, for instance, questions related to energy safety and climate change, support to the WTO negotiation round, and the cross-cultural dialogue, particularly between the religions," Lehtinen specified.
Besides several official visits to Finland, there will also be plenty of other events organised in connection with the Summit. The ASEM Summit in Finland is also a way of promoting, for instance, the connections between the European and Asian NGOs, business representatives, and chief editors.
The website and visual image for Finland’s EU Presidency unveiled