Minister Lehtomäki thanked cooperation partners for good cooperation

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paula Lehtomäki held her farewell reception for the cooperation partners and the ministry staff on 10 April, the day before the government negotiations started. During the reception, Lehtomäki expressed her thanks that her four years in office had gone so  well.

Lehtomäki looked back on her early days as the minister and remembered that when she entered the office at the age of 30, already at the very beginning, she had met civil servants who had been in state service even before she was born. In spite of her young age, the minister was welcomed to the office and, in quite a natural manner, she was given the status a political leader should have.

Secretary of State Pertti Torstila conveyed the thanks of the civil servant staff to the Minister and, as a surprise, challenged Lehtomäki and Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja to sing to all the guests. "Those were the days" sung by Lehtomäki, Tuomioja and Torstila did sound grand.