OSCE Secretary General Greminger to visit Finland

Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Thomas Greminger will visit Finland on Friday 23 November and meet Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini.

Secretary General Thomas Greminger and Foreign Minister Timo Soini will discuss the European security challenges and the OSCE's role in the current political situation. The topics of discussion will focus on the Ukraine conflict and, more widely, on the OSCE's role in efforts to resolve conflicts. Mediation and the prevention of conflicts are among the priorities that Foreign Minister Soini has set for his term of office.

Finland supports the OSCE's activities through considerable contributions. Finland has approximately 30 experts in the OSCE Secretariat and its operations. The majority of them, some 20 persons, are responsible for monitoring or other tasks in the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine. In addition, Finland supports the OSCE's projects through voluntary contributions of approximately EUR 550,000 a year.

Finland co-chairs the Group of Friends of Mediation together with Turkey and Switzerland and has expressed its strong support for enhancing the organisation's mediation capacity.

Inquiries: Riikka Taivassalo, Special Adviser to Foreign Minister Soini, tel. +358 46 923 4581, and Elina Dakash, Desk Officer, Unit for Security Policy and Crisis Management, tel. +358 295 350 401

The Foreign Ministry’s email addresses are in the format firstname.lastname@formin.fi.