Press releases

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.

In the 2019 Anholt-Ipsos Nation Brands Index (NBI), Finland impresses with the biggest overall score increase out of the 50 countries measured. Perceptions of Finland as a leader in environmental protection, in particular, have strengthened.

Foreign Minister Haavisto highlighted the importance of human rights-based foreign policy in his speech to the Paasikivi Society in Helsinki on 27 November.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Maldives, Abdulla Shahid, will visit Finland on 28–29 November and meet Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto and Minister of Education Li Andersson. The visit will be hosted by Minister Haavisto.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has expanded and improved its online historical archive. The improved online service was launched on 22 November.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit Minsk in Belarus on 25 November together with Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Ann Linde. The Ministers will meet President Alexander Lukashenko and Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei, as well as opposition and civil society representatives.

The EU Foreign Affairs Council (Development) will meet in Brussels on 25 November. Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will represent Finland at the meeting.

In the amendment to its 2020 budget proposal, the Government is proposing that the appropriations for discretionary government grants to civil society organisations that are relevant to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs’ responsibilities be increased to EUR 1.541 million from EUR 1.341 million.

Finland, the European External Action Service and the European Commission will co-organise a high-level event focusing on regional cooperation in the north in Helsinki on 29 November. The event, A Clean and Global North, is part of the programme for Finland’s Presidency of the Council of the EU. The event will also take into account the 20-year-old Northern Dimension policy, which has produced significant results in the environmental sector, for example, as regards the protection of the Baltic Sea.

The Free Trade Agreement between the EU and Singapore will enter into force on 21 November 2019.

Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will chair Foreign Affairs Council meeting on trade issues in Brussels on 21 November. EU trade ministers will discuss the WTO, EU-US trade relations, and the report on the implementation of EU free trade agreements.

Grete Faremo, Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Project Services UNOPS, will visit Finland on 22 November.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit Rwanda on 21–22 November. He will give a statement and answer questions on behalf of the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini at the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly in Kigali, Rwanda on 21 November. Minister Haavisto will also have bilateral meetings during the visit.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit Brussels on 19 November to attend a meeting of the European Economic Area Council. Haavisto will represent the European Union in the meeting in his capacity as Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the country holding the Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Sweden's Minister for Foreign Trade and Nordic Affairs Anna Hallberg will visit Finland on 19 November.

On 14 November 2019, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) gave its judgment concerning Finland in the case of the return of an asylum seeker to Iraq.

On 14 November, Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto will attend an extraordinary meeting the Foreign Ministers of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will participate in the second Paris Peace Forum, which will be held in Paris on 12 November.

The EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) will meet in Brussels on 11 November. Finland will be represented by Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto. The meeting will be followed by an informal lunch with the Prime Minister of Sudan, Abdalla Hamdok.

Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will attend the Nairobi Summit on the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD25) from 12 to 14 November. The Conference will mark the 25th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development held in 1994 in Cairo.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit Tanzania on 7–8 November. He will meet President John P. Magufuli and Minister for Foreign Affairs Palamagamba Kabudi and attend the African-Nordic foreign ministers’ meeting in Dar es Salaam. The meeting is expected to gather representatives from the Nordic countries and about fifteen African countries.

Launched by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Salam project that promotes peace and reconciliation brought together young people interested in social influence. During the autumn, workshops were organised for young people to discuss peace building and the means of communication to promote reconciliation. For Iraqis, a workshop was organised in Erbil while in Afghanistan young people gathered in Kabul.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit India on 4–6 November. He will meet the Minister of External Affairs of India S. Jaishankar and Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi. A special item on the agenda is a visit to Chennai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where Haavisto will attend the opening of the new production facility of KONE, visit one of India’s top universities IIT Madras and meet the state’s leaders. The minister’s delegation includes representatives of Finnish companies, universities and civil society organisations.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit Ukraine on 31 October– 1 November. He will meet with Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko, experts advising Ukraine in reforms and representatives of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM). Haavisto will also visit the contact line in eastern Ukraine together with Deputy Foreign Minister Yehor Bozhok.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will participate in the International solidarity conference on the Venezuelan refugee and migrant crisis, co-hosted by the EU and the UN in Brussels on 28–29 October 2019.

Finland aims to support the Green Climate Fund (GCF) by EUR 100 million in 2020–2023. The pledge was announced in connection with the first official Pledging Conference on 25 October in Paris.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will be on an official visit to Vilnius on 28 October 2019. He will meet with the Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis and hold discussions with Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius.

The series will consist of four separate discussion events to be held in October and November. The themes will look into the role of diaspora communities in Finland in the reconstruction and maintenance of peace in their former home countries. Two of the events will focus on Somalia, one will discuss Afghanistan and one will deal with Iraq and Syria.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs participates in the Helsinki Book Fair with a varied, fact-based programme. Also present at the fair will be Minister of Nordic Cooperation Thomas Blomqvist and Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto. A new, updated version of Europe Information’s book on basic facts about the EU (EU-perusteos / EU basfakte) will be published at the fair.