NordenBladet — At the presidential session on Friday 12 March, the President of the Republic appointed new Ambassadors and decided on a side accreditation.
The President of the Republic appointed Counsellor for Foreign Affairs Pekka Kosonen to serve as Head of Mission at Finland’s Embassy in Cairo, starting on 1 September 2021. Kosonen will move to Cairo from Kabul, where he has worked as Head of Mission in 2017–2021. Earlier, he deputised for the Head of the Foreign Ministry’s Legal Service and served as team leader responsible for sanctions in 2015–2019. In the Diplomatic Service, he has also held posts in Paris, Brussels and Luxembourg. He holds a Master of Laws degree.
The President of the Republic appointed Counsellor for Foreign Affairs Heli Kanerva to serve as Head of Mission at Finland’s Embassy in Kabul, starting on 1 September 2021. Most recently, Kanerva has served in the Foreign Ministry’s special assignments. In the Diplomatic Service, she has also held posts in the Permanent Mission of Finland to the UN in New York and at Finland’s Embassy in Tallinn. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Sciences.The President of the Republic also made a decision on the side accreditation of Head of Mission at Finland’s Embassy in Pretoria, Ambassador Anne Lammila, to Botswana.
NordenBladet — Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari has been appointed a global champion for school feeding by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
In this role, Minister Skinnari will promote global awareness of school meals and will seek funding sources for school feeding programmes. The task will continue until the end of 2021.School feeding is an important nutritional support in developing countries, and for many children the school meal is their only substantial meal of the day. At the same time as the coronavirus pandemic has weakened household livelihoods and increased hunger, school closures have left an estimated 370 million children without their daily school meals. In addition, 73 million children in the poorest countries lacked access to school meals even before the pandemic. School feeding programmes provide an incentive to send all children to school, including girls. This is all the more important as schools re-open after the pandemic.
“Finland is a pioneer of school feeding, and the Finnish system is considered a model example of well-implemented school meals. I want to share our experiences and solutions globally together with government actors, organisations and companies,” says Minister Skinnari. As a school feeding champion, Minister Skinnari supports the World Food Programme, which is building an international coalition around the theme of school feeding. He will promote international cooperation in various high-level forums, especially the UN Food Systems Summit to be held in New York in September.
NordenBladet — Minister of Local Government Sirpa Paatero will chair the meeting of the Nordic Council of Ministers for Digitalisation (MR-DIGITAL) on 16 March.
The meeting will include representatives from the Nordic and the Baltic countries. Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager of the European Commission will also attend.MR-DIGITAL will be chaired by Finland during 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s first meeting of MR-DIGITAL will be held virtually.The meeting will discuss the digital green transition and the role to be played in this transition by the countries of the region. Decisions will also be taken on the priorities for the four-year term of MR-DIGITAL.
NordenBladet — The Government has submitted to Parliament a proposal to postpone the 2021 municipal elections to Sunday 13 June. The purpose of the proposal is to promote the realisation of democratic rights and to ensure health security.
The 2021 municipal elections are proposed to be held on 13 June 2021. The advance voting period would be from 26 May to 8 June in Finland and from 2 to 5 June abroad. The Government proposes that the advance voting period in Finland be exceptionally extended to two weeks. In addition, the Government proposes support for municipalities to cover the extra costs arising from the extension of the advance voting period.
The candidate applications submitted earlier would still be valid. However, it would be possible to make changes to the applications and submit new applications until 4 May.
The party secretaries of the parliamentary parties decided to propose the postponement of the municipal elections at their meeting on 6 March. The final decision on the postponement of the elections will be made by Parliament.
NordenBladet — Antarctica, located around the geographical South Pole, and the surrounding islands south of 60 degrees South latitude together form the Antarctic region. Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest place on earth. It does not belong to any state and has no indigenous or permanent settlement.
The climate in Antarctica has impact worldwide. Photo: Pixabay
What, then, connects Arctic Finland, intersected by the Arctic Circle, to that southernmost continent of our planet? Surprisingly many things. In fact, that barren and almost completely ice-covered continent has an integral connection to every corner of the world. The reason is the continent’s central impact on the global climate and its changes.
Changes in ice cover affect the lives of millions around the world
Antarctica is covered by a huge ice sheet that in places is almost five kilometres thick. It contains 75% of the entire world’s fresh water and 90% of all the ice. It is therefore easy to see that even slight changes to the continent can have major global impacts.
The scales are huge. Fortunately, complete melting of the Antarctic glacier is unlikely, but if this were to happen, it is estimated that the sea level would rise by about 60 metres. Average temperatures have risen in both polar regions, and according to researchers, the melting of ice in the western part of Antarctica is accelerating at a rate that is difficult to predict. If the whole of West Antarctica were to melt, the estimated rise in the sea level would be about four metres worldwide. Even a much smaller rise in sea level could affect the lives of millions of people living on the coast around the world.
Finland plays an active role in Antarctic research
By studying the ice and atmosphere of Antarctica, the mechanism of climate change can be determined and both its rate and the human impact on climate change can be predicted more accurately. Studying the layers of ice can reveal information about the distant past. Antarctic research is, in a way, research on the entire globe and its history and future. The Antarctic is also home to rare, cold and dark ecosystems.
Finland is actively involved in Antarctic research. Finland has its own research station in Antarctica, Aboa, maintained by FINNARP, the Finnish Antarctic research programme of the Finnish Meteorological Institute. Regular research expeditions to Aboa have been organised since the 1980s. Although Finnish researchers would certainly find snow and ice closer to home, the research conducted in Antarctica is unique. Antarctica has a large, solid continental glacier and its own special features with regard, among others, to temperature, wind and atmospheric humidity. Corresponding information cannot be obtained from research done anywhere else.
NordenBladet —The UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force is conducting a joint naval operation Expone on southern part of the Baltic Sea from March 10 to 14. Additionally to the Royal Navy, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian navies as well as the Swedish Air Force take part of this exercise.
The joint force practices guarding waterways and escorting transport vessels by countering different air, submarine and ship attacks, also conducting mine countermeasures operations and naval surface fire training.
Units participating the operation are UK frigates HMS Lancaster, HMS Westminster, auxiliary ship RFA Tiderace together with helicopters from UK frigates, patrol vessel Jelgava from Latvia, minehunter Selis and auxiliary ship Jotvingis from Lithuania and auxiliary ship Wambola from Estonia.
“Security and defense of the waterways are our priorities during times of crises,” says Maj. Gen. Indrek Sirel, Deputy Chief of Defense of the Estonian Defense Forces. “The majority of our allies’ military equipment and other goods is transported by the sea. This exercise strengthens deterrence at sea in the same way as NATO Enhanced Forward Presence strengthens deterrence on the land.”
The UK-led naval operation Expone is part of Joint Expeditionary Force´s activities. The coalition of British, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Netherlands forces was formed on 2014.
JEF is determined to maintain the security and to react rapidly to crises in the northern Europe, Baltic States, northern Atlantic or anywhere in the world. JEF complements its member states’ and NATO´s deterrence posture in the region – planning, training and operating together enables member nations to react rapidly to any hostile activities and to prevent early the escalation of possible crises.
NordenBladet – Yesterday was plainly horrible, one catastrophe after another. Besides the event of having the car’s windscreen broken, also a tyre went flat. We seem to have overdriven a nail or a crook, which quite literally was still peeping out of where it had been stuck when the towing assistance arrived.
In any case, the towing help that was sent out by the insurance company arrived promptly and they quickly patched up and temporarily mended the tyre so that we could keep going where we had headed. The towing assistance suggested that we could drive like that still for quite some time, but I suppose we should start looking around for a new tyre or a perhaps even a full set of tyres.
Then it happened that Ivanka accidentally spilled milk on my laptop computer, this was the third computer spoiled by these tiny sweet hands. Luckily in the household we currently have 8 computers, thus the working process was not interrupted…. but whoever uses a computer in their job understands that just that one “favourite computer” that is used daily, needs to be used to achieve the best results.
Even that didn’t complete the full volume of that day’s drama. The teacher from Ivanka’s clay hobby class announced that she had fallen ill and thus the long awaited clay class was dismissed, yet the scheduled event and all the chain of failings also served as an obstacle in attending the WIT (Women in Technology) online conference which I had very much been looking forward to.
I decided to go outside to walk and thus ventilate the annoyment heat out of the system, but it was even so crispy cold outside that the stress got worse. Then the notification arrived that schools would be closed all of March and children will continue with distance learning. The negative impact that remote learning can have on children has been revealed HERE. And on top of that the news that all businesses except for groceries and pharmacies will be shut down. Oh noo!
But still, something positive, too.. )
– This week a new piece from the Mice painting series “His Highness Mouse the First” was finished. That one was the 13th from the series! The work still continues, a lot more to go (for the children’s book with the same title just two chapters have been completed and the paintings still pending are the same amount that were already painted).
– I started building the commercial environment (online shopping centre) and auction site for NordenBladet web portal
– I got hold of seven wonderful paintings by Estonan artists to be added to my individual collection
– Elisheva & Shoshana brand launched collaboration with two new great beauty bloggers
– I was notified that the corona vaccination queue has reached me and already this Friday (12 March) I will get the first shot of the AstraZenecavaccine
– I got as a present a nice sports watch Mi Smart Band 5. The watch has such nice functions as pulse count, personal activity index, REM sleep recognition and other fun functions. For example I can check the amount of calories I have burnt. Today I connected the watch with the Mi Fit app on my smartphone and started wearing the watch on my wrist.
– I bought new lovely napkins with ladybirds and amanita mushrooms! Haha… it is a small thing, you know, but it elevated my mood. Also I cooked for many hours (I made potato cutlets, oven meat, fresh salad). I served the meal beautifully (I built a nice face from the meal ingredients, children loved it). As a new product, I tried Felix pesto mayonnaise. It was quite nice!
NordenBladet — On 11 March, the Government decided to extend the restrictions on entry into the country until 17 April 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, and there are no adequate measures available yet to replace the restrictions. For this reason, and to curb the spread of COVID-19 variants, both internal border controls and restrictions on external border traffic will continue. Only minor changes were made to the decisions taken on 18 February. The changes will enter into force on 19 March 2021.
Finland will also continue to provide assistance to its neighbour Estonia. In accordance with the current operating procedure, the Gulf of Finland Coast Guard District has informed passengers at the Port of Tallinn about the conditions for entry since September 2020. The aim is to ensure that passengers will not be turned away at the Finnish border. For example, a holiday or work other than tasks that are considered essential from the perspective of security of supply or the functioning of society does not entitle travellers to enter the country even if they have a negative COVID-19 test certificate.
Finland restricts entry from all other Schengen countries except Iceland
Internal border traffic refers to traffic between Finland and other Schengen countries. Finland continues to restrict entry from all other Schengen countries except Iceland. The Schengen countries are Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden, which are EU Member States, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, which are non-EU countries.
Minor changes to restrictions on external border traffic
External border traffic refers to traffic between Finland and non-Schengen third countries. Restrictions have already been lifted earlier for traffic arriving in Finland from the Vatican, and for traffic between Finland and Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and New Zealand for residents of these countries. Restrictions will now be lifted for traffic arriving in Finland from Rwanda for residents of Rwanda.
Restrictions on opening hours of border crossing points
The opening hours of certain border crossing points at the western border in Lapland and the eastern border will be restricted. The aim of these changes is to concentrate cross-border traffic mainly to daytime and evening hours. This will ensure that the health authorities have sufficient resources at the border. The objective is to guide all people crossing the Finnish border to a COVID-19 test, unless they can present proof of a sufficiently recent negative COVID-19 test or proof of recovery from COVID-19. The limited opening hours do not apply to goods transport or to necessary passenger traffic with a justified reason to cross the border outside the opening hours.
After an amendment to the decision of 18 February 2021, the opening hours of the border crossing points of Ylitornio and Vartius will also be restricted in order to ensure health security.
Government still recommends avoiding unnecessary travel abroad
Under the Constitution of Finland, Finnish citizens and residents of Finland always have the right to return to Finland, and everyone has the right to leave Finland if they so wish, provided that there is no legal impediment to this. However, the Government still recommends avoiding unnecessary travel to other countries, except for countries for which the restrictions on entry have been lifted. Travellers must be aware of the current entry and quarantine regulations of their country of destination.For more detailed information on the restrictions on internal and external border traffic, see the Border Guard website and the press releases published on 22 January, 11 February and 18 February by the Ministry of the Interior.
NordenBladet — On 11 March, the Government submitted to Parliament a proposal for an act on temporarily amending the Communicable Diseases Act. According to the proposal, a government decree issued under the temporary provisions of the Act could impose stricter restrictions on the opening hours, licensing hours and number of customer seats in businesses located in areas that are in tier 2 of epidemic prevention measures. The amendments would enter into force on 29 March 2021 at the latest and would remain in force until 30 June 2021.
In line with the proposal, the number of customers in food and beverage service businesses could be limited to as little as one third of the normal capacity if the conditions laid down in the act are met. Businesses could be required to stop serving alcoholic beverages as early as 17.00 and to close their premises by 18.00. The decree could also require customers to make reservations, for example, and could place restrictions on singing and playing music in food and beverage service businesses. The new restrictions will be laid down by government decree at the end of March as the epidemiological situation requires.
More stringent restrictions aim to prevent the spread of new virus variants
In May 2020, restrictions on the activities of food and beverage service businesses were temporarily added to the Communicable Diseases Act, under sections 58a and 58b, in order to curb the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic. The new proposed amendments aim to better respond to the worsened epidemiological situation and the threat posed by new virus variants. The proposal would make it possible to introduce necessary and proportionate restrictions on food and beverage service businesses in line with the Government’s hybrid strategy, especially after the restaurant closures have ended.
Under the amended Act on Accommodation and Catering Operations, food and beverage service businesses must remain closed to customers between 9 and 28 March 2021 in the areas provided for by government decree in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Despite the intensified hygiene measures and restrictions, numerous major transmission chains and mass exposures originating in food and beverage service businesses were identified in January and February 2021, in which nearly all customers in the establishment in question had become infected. The greatest risk has been observed in businesses whose primary source of income is the sale of alcoholic beverages, but there have also been infections originating in businesses that mainly serve food. It is possible that the increased prevalence of more infectious virus variants has further heightened the risk of transmission in restaurants, bars and other premises where adults meet and gather.
Existing restrictions and general obligations remain in force
Food and beverage service businesses must continue to follow specific hygiene requirements and ensure sufficient physical distance between customers. They are required to draw up a plan on how to implement the restrictions and obligations. The plan and the maximum permitted number of customers must be displayed where customers can see them.The Regional State Administrative Agencies are responsible for overseeing compliance with the restrictions and obligations. The restrictions laid down in the act do not apply to the activities of staff restaurants or to takeaway sales of food and beverages. The restrictions on opening hours do not apply to food and beverage service businesses operating in connection with service stations or to food and beverage services on ships and airplanes travelling between Finland and other countries or operating abroad.
NordenBladet — Mika Nordman has been appointed Director (Digital Services) at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment for a term of five years starting on 1 April 2021. The Government decided on the appointment on 11 March 2021.
Mika Nordman is a Licentiate of Science and a Master of Science in Technology. He has worked as Branch Director at the Legal Register Centre since 2013. Prior to that, he was Assistant Production Manager and Head of Project Management Office at the ICT Service Centre for the Judicial Administration in 2008–2013. Nordman has also worked as scientist at the Finnish Defence Forces Technical Research Centre in 2002–2008 and as software engineer at Patria Ailon Oy in 2001. The post of Director of Digital Services is new and Nordman will report directly to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry. The digital service system in the administrative branch of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment will be subject to significant structural and service changes and additional investments, which will begin during this government term and continue over the next few years. The Director will coordinate the development of the new digital service system during the transition phase. A total of 39 applications were received for the position.
