NordenBladet — The new EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy 2020–2024 has approved last week. Finland actively participated in the negotiations and regards the Action Plan as a significant document steering the EU’s common foreign and security policy.
This Action plan strengthens the EU’s goal concerning the global human rights leadership. It is based on the commitment to the international rules-based system, universal human rights, rule of law and democracy. The human rights defenders, who are driven into a corner in many countries, will continue to be supported strongly.
The fight for equality continuesThe EU continues its work promoting gender equality, parity and diversity. Particular attention is paid to the position and rights of people who are the most vulnerable. This is especially important due to the coronavirus situation, which has, according to several different surveys, increased inequality and led to human rights violations against those who are already in the most vulnerable position (e.g. disabled, indigenous peoples and sexual and gender minorities).
The Action Plan contains a wide range of actions to which the EU and the Member States commit in their bilateral and multilateral actions. The EU continues its long-term work, for example, to eliminate the death penalty and torture. Fundamental rights and freedoms remain as significant priorities. More attention will be paid on the economic, social and cultural rights. The promotion of human rights will also remain as an essential part of the EU’s trade and development policy. Severe human rights issues caused by climate change are comprehensively covered by the Action Plan. The human rights perspectives related to technology and digitalisation are also considered as well as the private sector’s role in promoting human rights.
The implementation of the Action Plan will start immediately, and its implementation will be regularly monitored in different assemblies of the Council.
For more information, please contact: Janina Hasenson, Legislative Secretary at the Unit for Human Rights Policy, Ministry for Foreign Affairs
NordenBladet — Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi will visit Finland on 25–26 November 2020. On Wednesday, he will meet President of the Republic Sauli Niinistö and Minister of Economic Affairs Mika Lintilä and discuss with Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto and Minister for Development and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari. On Thursday, Mr Grossi will visit Eurajoki.
The discussions will focus on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and the peaceful use of nuclear power. In addition to the use of nuclear power in energy production, Grossi is particularly interested in Finland’s pioneering work in constructing a final repository for spent nuclear fuel in Olkiluoto. During the day, he will also discuss current issues related to the use of nuclear energy with representatives of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment and the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK). He will also visit the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland to learn about the expertise related to the Centre for Nuclear Safety and the decommissioning of nuclear power.
On Thursday 26 November, Director General Grossi will visit Eurajoki to learn about the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant, which is under construction by Teollisuuden Voima Oy. He will also hear about Posiva Oy’s final repository of spent nuclear fuel, encapsulation plant and the underground facility Onkalo.
NordenBladet — Jyväskylä, Tampere, Karkkila and Vihti will launch a project in which the problems faced by children, young people and families will be tackled proactively and at the right time. The aim is to increase wellbeing and reduce the costs of services and the need for unemployment benefits.
The project includes a new feature where municipalities only pay for the achievement of the performance targets, such as the completion of a secondary degree, finding employment or a reduction in the number of unauthorised school absences. A form of impact investing called Social Impact Bond (SIB) will be used in the project. Such projects are financed with private capital, which the municipalities will pay back in addition to a reasonable profit only if the performance targets are met.
Completing a secondary qualification and finding work are key factors in becoming a member of society. However, about 15% of young people and up to a half of those placed in substitute care by child welfare services will not achieve any degree beyond basic education. The cost to society of a young person not in education or employment is approximately EUR 18,000 per year.
Municipalities define project aims
The project in Jyväskylä has two target groups. The aim is that 70% of the participants, who are young people at risk of terminating secondary level education, will graduate. Another objective is that the number of sixth-graders, who perform poorly at school and are at risk of becoming clients of child welfare services, will be reduced by 50% and that their school performance improves.“It is necessary that we find new funding and operating methods to prevent problems. In this project, Jyväskylä is testing a new preventive approach and funding model and we hope that the results will speak for themselves,” says Eino Leisimo, Director of Education in the City of Jyväskylä.
Meanwhile, Tampere aims to ensure that 80% of the young people placed in substitute care receive at least a secondary degree and that 80% are either gainfully employed or study at the age of 25.
Karkkila, Vihti and their joint municipal welfare authority Karviainen aim to reduce the need for corrective services by providing early and timely support to families with children. The Centre of Expertise for Impact Investing, which is part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, has prepared the project together with the municipalities. FIM Private Equity Funds (FIM Pääomarahastot Oy), which was selected through the competitive tendering procedure required by the Act on Public Procurement and Concession Contracts, will be in charge of implementing the project and collecting the investor capital together with the Central Union for Child Welfare. The project will begin at the start of 2021 and last for 10 years.
“The coronavirus crisis has further increased the need for early and timely support, especially among vulnerable children, young people and families. At the same time, the financial resources of public authorities are spent on funding corrective child welfare services. By combining the impact investing capital from private investors with the preventive services provided by the best operators, the project aims to achieve a real impact on wellbeing while lowering the costs of child welfare services. If successful, the project will benefit not only families but also the public sector and investors,” says Jani Kempas, Managing Director of FIM Private Equity Funds.
A similar SIB project to improve the wellbeing of children and young people has already begun in Helsinki, Hämeenlinna, Kimitoön, Lohja and Vantaa. The SIB model has also been used in Finland to promote wellbeing at work in the public sector as well as employment of immigrants and people who have been without work for a long time. Other projects are also being planned.
NordenBladet — A total of 312,700 unemployed jobseekers were registered at the Employment and Economic Development Offices at the end of October. This was 88,000 more than a year earlier. The number of unemployed jobseekers was down by 3,100 from the previous month. The number of unemployed jobseekers also includes those fully laid off. These figures are from the Employment Bulletin of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.At the end of October, the number of people laid off was 74,900 in the whole country, which was 58,300 more than at the same time the year before. The number of people fully laid off totalled 57,200, representing an increase of 46,300 from October the year before. The number of people fully laid off increased by 400 from September.
The number of long-term unemployed — that is those who had been unemployed without interruption for at least a year — amounted to 82,000, up 20,700 on the previous year. The number of unemployed jobseekers aged over 50 was 114,400, representing an increase of 28,200 on the year before.
The number of unemployed jobseekers aged under 25 was 36,300, representing an increase of 9,600 from October last year. Among unemployed young people, the period of unemployment ended within three months on average in 64.1% of cases between January and October, which is 3.7 percentage points less than the year before.
Decrease in number of new vacancies
The number of new vacancies reported to Employment and Economic Development Offices during October totalled 53,000, or 12,100 fewer than in October the previous year. In all, the number of unfilled vacancies at Employment and Economic Development Offices in October amounted to 100,600, showing a decrease of 20,400 from the previous year.
At the end of October, the number of persons covered by services included in the activation rate amounted to 118,500, down 5,500 on the previous year. These services include pay subsidies, labour market training, work trials and self-motivated studies.
Statistics Finland: Unemployment rate 7.4%
According to the Labour Force Survey issued by Statistics Finland, in October the number of people in employment was 26,000 less than on the previous year. The employment rate was 71.5%, which was 0.5 percentage points lower than in October the year before. According to the Survey, the unemployment total was 203,000, which is 34,000 more than a year ago. The unemployment rate was 7.4%, or 1.2 percentage points higher than the previous year.
Key differences between Employment Service Statistics and the Labour Force Survey
This information is based on the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment’s Employment Service Statistics and the Labour Force Survey of Statistics Finland. The Employment Service Statistics of the Ministry are compiled on the basis of the information in the Employment and Economic Development Offices’ customer register, while the Labour Force Survey of Statistics Finland is based on sampling.In the Ministry’s Employment Service Statistics, people that are not in an employment relationship or employed in business are listed as unemployed. Persons fully laid-off but not full-time students are also categorised as unemployed in the Employment Service Statistics. The Labour Force Survey of Statistics Finland has a stricter definition for being unemployed: a person is unemployed if he or she has actively sought employment during the preceding four weeks and is available for work over the coming two weeks. The figures of the Labour Force Survey of Statistics Finland are internationally comparable and thus they are the official Finnish unemployment statistics.Further information on the differences in the statistics http://www.stat.fi/til/tyti/tyti_2016-08-23_men_001_en.html
NordenBladet — Members of the Estonian Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (PA) today participate in the Assembly’s Annual Session, which is held online for the first time. Originally, the Session was due to be held in Athens, Greece.
Head of the Estonian Delegation Oudekki Loone said that the NATO PA had succeeded in digitising its daily work, meetings and discussion of reports with remarkable speed in 2020, and new activities had also been rapidly created.
“It is true that several fact-finding missions were cancelled, but thematic web seminars were held to replace them. The level of reports that are to be adopted is high as usual, we have managed to contribute our valuable input to common defence policy in the NATO PA,” she added.
In Loone’s opinion, virtual instruments can still be only a temporary solution. “The idea of parliamentary assemblies is also to deepen the relations between member states, to create a common discussion space, to enable informal discussions, and it is almost impossible to achieve all this through conference software,” Loone said.
The committees of the Assembly will consider and assess several reports, and present resolutions that will be adopted by the plenary session today. Online meetings of committees were held before today’s plenary sessions.
This year, the focus of the Annual Session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly is on NATO’s adaptation to the threats and the situations caused by them. The emphasis will be on NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s NATO2030 reflection process, the main aim of which is strengthening of political dimension. The Assembly will also discuss Russia’s continuing threat to security and the new challenges arising from China. Additionally, greater attention will be paid to the security of the Black Sea, the Balkan and the Gulf Region.
Today’s plenary session starts at 4 p.m. and it will be streamed online.
NordenBladet — Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto and Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will travel Geneva to lead the 2020 Afghanistan Conference to be held on 23–24 November. Finland has co-organised the conference together with the Afghan Government and the United Nations. Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, the international ministerial conference will be held virtually from Geneva.
At the conference, the Afghan Government and the international community will determine their shared commitments to the development and stability of Afghanistan in 2021–2024. The conference coincides with an important period of time from the point of view of the future of Afghanistan, because the historic Afghan-Taliban peace talks started in September in Doha. In addition to the Finnish Ministers, Acting Foreign Minister Mohammad Haneef Atmar and Afghan Minister of Finance Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal will be present in Geneva. UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Deborah Lyons will speak on behalf of the United Nations.
The two-day programme includes bilateral meetings between ministers and the Government of Switzerland and representatives of international organisations based in Geneva.A live webcast of the conference will be available on the United Nations website.
NordenBladet — Minister for Nordic Cooperation Thomas Blomqvist will attend an informal online meeting of Ministers for Nordic Cooperation on 23 November 2020.
The meeting will approve next year’s budget for the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Council’s Action Plan for 2021–2024. The Action Plan paves the way for the implementation of the Vision 2030 that the Nordic Prime Minister adopted last summer. According to the new vision, the objective is to make the Nordic region the most sustainable and integrated region in the world by 2030. A draft version of the document, called Our Vision 2030, has been published on the Secretariat’s website. The Action Plan will be translated into Finnish after its adoption. At the meeting, the ministers will discuss the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Nordic cooperation. Other topics of discussion on the agenda are strengthening of civil society’s participation in the Nordic cooperation, and the Nordic Council of Minister’s stronger role in Belarus to support its democracy development.
The meeting will be the last one during the Danish Presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers. Finland’s Nordic Presidency will start in January 2021. The programme can be accessed in a digital format.
NordenBladet — At the public video sitting starting at 1.45 p.m. today, the European Union Affairs Committee, the Finance Committee and the State Budget Control Select Committee of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) will be given an overview of the 2019 annual report of the European Court of Auditors, which will be presented by Member of the European Court of Auditors Juhan Parts. European Court of Auditors monitors the implementation of the budget of the European Union and the lawfulness of the use of the funds.
Chair of the European Union Affairs Committee Anneli Ott pointed out that in the next seven years, the EU would contribute a significant amount of financial resources to mitigating the economic and social impacts of the virus crisis. The expanses of the European Union will nearly double in the coming years. “In the light of the adoption of the European Union’s long-term budget and combating the COVID-19 crisis, it is of particular importance that the funds of the Union were used soundly and effectively,” Ott said.
According to the report of the European Court of Auditors, the revenues of the European Union for the previous year were legal and regular, and free from material error. The overall level of error for expenditure from the EU budget of 2019 was 2.7 %, which is slightly larger than the year before (2.6 %).
According to the audit, the situation in the area of natural resources has improved and the results in the area of administrative expenditure are good.
The share of high-risk expenditure in audit population has increased and represents 53 % of it. This mainly concerns reimbursement-based expenditure, for example, in the areas of cohesion and rural development, where the EU expenses are managed by the Member States. High-risk expenditure is often subject to complex rules and eligibility criteria. According to the audit, this category continues to be affected by material error and the estimated level of error is 4.9 % (in 2018, it was 4.5 %). The auditors found that the errors were pervasive, and therefore presented an adverse opinion on the expenditure of the EU.
Public sitting starts at 1.45 p.m. and it will be streamed online.
The video recording of the sitting is available to watch on-demandon the Riigikogu YouTubechannel.
(Please note that the recording will be uploaded with a delay.)
NordenBladet — The video conference of the members of the Finance Committee and the State Budget Control Select Committee of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) with the delegation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) focused on the issues relating to transparency of the state budget.
Deputy Chair of the Finance Committee Maris Lauri said that the IMF delegation was interested in the economic forecasts used as the basis for drafting the state budget, and how such forecasts were taken into account.
The IMF delegation was given an overview of the state budget drafting processes and of following of the rules and taking into account expert opinions, as well as of the transparency and clarity of the state budget.
“At the meeting, we concluded that we can be satisfied with the economic forecasts and predicting the budget revenues, and with reporting,” Lauri said. She added that the greatest problem was with the expenses: the transparency and justification of the state budget revenues was weak, and essentially there was no overview of the current expenses of the state budget in a form that would enable to compare plans with the reality. “Responsible financial management means not only making plans, but also adhering to them and supervising compliance with them in order to make the necessary corrections in time. Only in this way, unexpected and huge deficits can be avoided.”
Member of the Finance Committee Aivar Sõerd said that the long-term draft budgetary plans prepared by the Government lacked the action plan and measures for reducing the budget deficit in exiting the crisis. “These measures should be developed and described by today, but this has not been done. As regards the transparency of the state budget, it is not possible to be satisfied with the current situation. Transition to activity-based budgeting has not increased, but reduced the transparency of the state budget,” Sõerd added.
Chairman of the State Budget Control Select Committee Jürgen Ligi, Deputy Chair of the Finance Committee Maris Lauri and members of the Committee Riina Sikkut, Andres Sutt and Aivar Sõerd Participated in the video conference.
The delegation if the International Monetary Fund discusses the economic policy situation of Estonia at meetings with the representatives of the public and private sector. On the basis of the consultations conducted during the IMF’s annual mission to Estonia, the IMF report assessing Estonia’s economic policies is prepared. The head of the IMF delegation at the video conference was Sage De Clerck.
NordenBladet —At today’s cabinet meeting, members of the government agreed in principle on further restrictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. It is planned to make it obligatory to wear a mask or cover one’s nose and mouth in public indoor spaces, extend the so-called 2 + 2 rule, reduce the maximum number of participants in public events, etc. Stricter measures will be applied in the epicentres of the coronavirus epidemic – in Harju County and Ida-Viru County. Both the Health Board and the scientists advising the government support the new restrictions.
According to Prime Minister Jüri Ratas, the situation related to the spread of the coronavirus in Estonia is becoming more critical, especially in terms of the functioning of the medical system. “The epidemic spread of the coronavirus in Estonia means that we must introduce stricter restrictions to ensure the continuity of the Estonian health care system and the availability of treatment for everyone, even as the number of COVID-19 patients continues to increase. We have the opportunity to slow down the growth of the infection rate with joint efforts. For this, we must follow the restrictions set by the government and behave reasonably and in a mutually supportive manner,” said Ratas. “All of us must now make every effort so we could spend the Christmas holidays with our loved ones. Let us postpone major holiday events to next year and spend this Christmas in a smaller family circle.”
RESTRICTIONS IN HARJU COUNTY AND IDA VIRU COUNTY
Public events and meetings, culture and entertainment, churches
The 50% occupancy limit will apply to cultural institutions, which means halls with stationary seating, such as theatres, cinemas, concert venues as well as churches, and to public events (including conferences), public meetings, and entertainment activities (excluding children’s playrooms). The obligation to wear a mask or to cover one’s nose and mouth will apply everywhere in these places. A dispersed seating model must be applied in rooms with stationary seating. The maximum number of participants in indoor places with stationary seating is 400; elsewhere else, it is 250. For outdoor events, the maximum number is 500.
Hobby education and activities and indoor refresher training and refresher courses
A group limit of 10 people is set and the people must be dispersed. The obligation to wear a mask or cover one’s nose and mouth will apply to people over 12 years of age. The principle of reasonableness must be followed.
Indoor sports activities
Group training can be performed in groups of 10 people. For example, this applies to indoor fitness classes and other similar training activities. The restriction does not apply to professional and semi-professional sports under the auspices of sports governing bodies, including youth sports and extracurricular sports activities.
Public transport
During peak hours, more buses will be added to the schedule, and masks must be worn or one’s nose and mouth must be covered.
Upper secondary schools
Central organisation of distance learning in Harju and Ida-Viru counties, for which the Health Board will issue a corresponding order to local governments; the Ministry of Education and Research will issue the order to state educational institutions.
RESTRICTIONS THROUGHOUT ESTONIA
Obligation to wear a mask or to cover one’s nose and mouth in public indoor spaces
Obligation to wear a mask or cover one’s nose and mouth indoors, including on public transport and at service points, during hobby education and activities, as well as refresher training and refresher courses.
People for whom it is medically contraindicated, as well as children under the age of 12, do not need to cover their nose and mouth or wear a mask if sufficient distance is ensured and in other justified cases. The government is developing a plan to provide masks for disadvantaged people.
The 2 + 2 rule extends to public indoor spaces
The so-called 2 + 2 rule must be followed everywhere in public indoor spaces, which means that two people can move together but keep a distance of two metres from other people. This applies, for example, in bank branches, hairdressing and beauty salons, and elsewhere.
The current 10 + 2 rule will continue to apply in catering establishments and places where entertainment services are provided. The rule means that a group may include up to 10 people, but they have to keep a distance of two metres from others. These restrictions do not apply to families.
Public events and meetings, culture and entertainment, churches
The maximum number of participants in public events will be reduced. Up to 400 people can take part in an indoors public event with stationary seating, otherwise, up to 250 people are allowed. For outdoor events, the maximum number of participants is 500.
Work organisation
The strict recommendation to telework, if possible, remains valid.
