Press releases

The highest number of visas to Finland are applied for in Russia. Tourism from China and United Arab Emirates is also on the increase.

On 18 February, Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will visit Stockholm to attend a meeting convened by Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Trade and Nordic Affairs Anna Hallberg. The meeting will discuss ways to promote trade and sustainable development. In addition to Minister Skinnari, representatives of Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic are expected to attend the meeting.

The EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) will meet in Brussels on 17 February. Finland’s representative at the meeting will be Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto. The topics on the agenda will be the EU’s relationship with the African Union and the situation in Libya. In connection with the meeting, Foreign Ministers will also meet the Indian Minister of External Affairs to discuss the preparations for the upcoming EU–India Summit.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will attend the Munich Security Conference in Germany on 14–15 February.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell Fontelles and EU Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen have invited EU development ministers to discuss the new EU Strategy for Africa at an informal lunch in Brussels on 13 February. Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will represent Finland at the meeting.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has granted EUR 420,000 in discretionary government transfers to 20 civil society organisations’ (CSOs) Europe information. The total number of supported projects is 22.

The preparatory meeting of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) will be held in Inari on 10–16 February 2020. The meeting will be attended by 16 members of UNPFII from around the world.

The Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Jacek Czaputowicz will visit Finland on 12–13 February 2020.

Finland has been elected as the Chair of the Freedom Online Coalition (FOC), a partnership committed to supporting internet freedoms and promoting respect for human rights, FOC members for the year 2021. The decision was announced on Friday 7 February at the Annual Freedom Online Conference in Accra.

On 10 February, Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit Vienna to attend the third International Conference on Nuclear Security, organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). While in Vienna, Minister Haavisto will meet, among others, Austria’s Federal Minister for European and International Affairs Alexander Schallenberg and Federal Minister for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology Leonore Gewessler.

The Development Policy Committee (DPC) for this government term met at its first plenary session on 6 February 2020. Its key aim is to encourage discussion on development policy at national and, in particular, parliamentary levels. All parliamentary parties and key stakeholders in development policy contexts are represented in the Committee.

Finland will organise an international visit to Lapland Air Command and Jaeger Brigade on 11 to 15 May 2020. An invitation will be sent to all participating States of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a total of 56 countries.

On 4 February, the European Committee on Social Rights issued its ruling on a collective complaint lodged by the Central Union for Child Welfare against Finland in November 2016 concerning the restriction of children's subjective right to early childhood education and care.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet will visit Finland on 5–6 February 2020.

Minister for Nordic Cooperation Thomas Blomqvist will attend a meeting of Ministers for Nordic Cooperation in Copenhagen on 4 February 2020.

Mirko Manzoni, Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Mozambique and Neha Sanghrajka, Senior Mediation Advisor, will visit Finland on 3–4 February. The Mozambican peace process is in a critical phase as the opposition troops are being demobilised. The aim is to return them to their communities and reintegrate them into a peaceful society.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has appointed Heli Suominen as Press Officer at the Finnish Embassy in London. The three-year term will start on 1 March 2020.

On 31 January, Finland’s Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe, Ambassador Nina Nordström, was elected as Chair of the Committee of the Parties to the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention). The Permanent Representatives of Ireland and Albania were elected as Vice-Chairs.

Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Ann Linde and Norway’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Ine Eriksen Søreide will visit Finland on 5–6 February. The two ministers will attend the Hanalys seminar on foreign and security policy at Hanaholmen on 6 February.

By decision of Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs has granted 22.5 million euros for Finnish civil society organisations’ (CSOs) development cooperation programmes in Africa for 2020–2021.

Executive Director of UN Women Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka will visit Finland on 4 February.

This is FINLAND Magazine 2020–2021 has been released. This year's issue highlights Finland's strengths particularly in promoting sustainable development and curbing climate change.

Dr Abdulkarim Omar, who represents the autonomous administration of northeast Syria, will visit Helsinki on 29–30 January 2020. Omar is Co-Chair of the Foreign Relations Commission in northeast Syria, which has declared itself as an autonomous region.

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.

The EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) will meet in Brussels on 10 January. Finland will be represented by Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto. The meeting will focus on the situation in Iraq and on ways to de-escalate tensions in the region. The current situation in Libya will also be discussed.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs confirms that two Finnish children from the al-Hol camp are in the care of the authorities, who aim to repatriate them to Finland. The authorities will organise a press conference in Helsinki at a date to be announced later.

The public authorities are preparing to repatriate two Finnish children from the Syrian al-Hol camp. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs will provide detailed information once the children are safe and in the care of the Finnish authorities. Information on their arrival in Finland will be communicated at the earliest opportunity.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs today requested the police to investigate how certain internal documents wound up in the public domain.

Finland will contribute EUR 114 million to the replenishment of the International Development Association (IDA), which is part of the World Bank Group. IDA supports the world's poorest countries.

Thomas Greminger, Secretary General of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), has appointed Ambassador Tuula Yrjölä from Finland as Director of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre (CPC) and Deputy Secretary General, starting from the beginning of 2020. The position is an important post at the OSCE Secretariat in Vienna.

Finland will allocate EUR 8 million from development cooperation funds to the work of the United Nations Children's Fund in Nepal. The funding of UNICEF's country programme will improve the quality of teaching for the next three years, as well as the water and sanitation services of communities and schools.

Finland will allocate EUR 3 million through the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF to supporting the most vulnerable children’s access to education in Syria.

Finland will contribute EUR 68.4 million to the replenishment of the African Development Fund (AfDF), which is the concessional window of the African Development Bank Group. Finland is also preparing a loan of EUR 80 million for the AfDF. The AfDF supports the continent's poorest countries.

According to a new UN assessment, 168 million people in 53 countries are currently in need of emergency relief. The guidelines for persons with disabilities in humanitarian crises, supported by Finland, have recently been adopted at both EU and UN levels.

At the end of the Conference on Business and Human Rights, held by Finland in Brussels on 2 December, Minister of Labour Timo Harakka and State Secretary Johanna Sumuvuori published an Agenda for Action for the EU.

A bug bounty project provides opportunities for information security researchers and hackers to examine, within a set of defined boundaries, the information security of selected services on the Internet. The protective measures of the targeted systems will not be opened for the duration of the project. 

Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will visit Washington, the Unites States on 3 to 4 December. During his visit, he will meet United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and other representatives of the administration. He will also visit the US Congress.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs will organise a conference to advance EU-level discussions on how businesses can better take human rights into account in their own activities, in the activities of their partners and in their supply chains. Minister of Employment Timo Harakka will open and close the conference.

On 2 December, Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit The Hague, where he will meet Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands Stef Blok and representatives of international organisations based in The Hague.

Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will lead an export promotion visit to Toronto, Canada, on 2 December. During his visit, he will attend the opening of the Toronto Office of Business Finland. The Minister will be accompanied by a business delegation representing Finnish expertise in the bioeconomy and circular economy sectors.

Speaking before the association dedicated to Finland’s former President Urho Kekkonen in Helsinki on 28 November 2019, Foreign Minister Haavisto underlined the positive role that Finland plays in the international agreements-based system.