FINLAND

Historical archives of Finnish missions abroad to be published online

By
Helena-Reet Ennet
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NordenBladet — The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland will launch an online service containing all the reports of Finnish missions abroad from 1918 to 1926. The online service will be launched on International Open Data Day, 3 March 2018.

Publishing the archives online is part of the Centenary Celebration Programme of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, which was established on 28 June 1918. Finnish missions began their operations abroad even before the Ministry was established.

The first reports available on the online service are from London, dating back to January 1918. At the time, Finland did not even have an official mission in – let alone diplomatic relations with – Great Britain. In 1918, reports were also sent from Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo and Berlin. By 1926, Finland’s network had expanded by about a dozen missions. Reports from all of these are available on the online service.

The number of reports and digitised pages varies considerably by mission. In 1918, for example, London produced almost 1,000 pages of material, whereas the figures for Berlin and Stockholm stood at 500 and less than ten, respectively. In total, the online service contains 36,800 pages of material.

The digitised material now being published includes official reports from the missions. In addition, the missions submitted information to Helsinki by letter, telegram and informal correspondence between members of the old-boy network. These are not included on the online service.

The topics discussed in the reports are similar to those covered in the material that Finnish missions abroad are currently producing. They include details of the host country’s domestic and foreign policies and economic situation. The material also covers discussion notes and press reviews.

For a long time, reporting was carried out by the envoy heading the mission. In other words, it was the ‘highest degree’ of information production: the envoy networked with senior and otherwise knowledgeable circles in order to obtain up-to-date information, which was dispatched to Finland. The most competent envoys produced the most competent analyses.
On the whole, the archived material shows that there were no regulations on or learnt models in place for reporting formats. Some reports consist of a few pages on a single subject, whereas others cover several dozens of pages on a variety of topics. At first, some missions reported in Swedish. Some texts were written by hand. After all, a mission might have been located in a hotel room, and people had to make do with the equipment available.

The stamps on the pages also provide clues to the speed of reporting. By way of example, a report from Tokyo took about five weeks to get to Helsinki. The Foreign Ministry’s website also features an article by Unto Hämäläinen, entitled ‘Finland’s year zero’, which takes readers back to the early years of Finland’s independence and international relations.

Source: Finland.ee
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Record number of travellers registered their travel details last year via Matkustusilmoitus.fi

By
Helena-Reet Ennet
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NordenBladet —  In 2017, the Finland´s Foreign Ministry received nearly 267,000 travel notifications, up by almost 96,000 on the previous year. This was more than ever before. The number of countries and regions visited was 198.

Matkustusilmoitus.fi is an online service where people can register their travel plans and contact details with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs for it to be able to contact them in case of an emergency or a crisis abroad. In the course of last year, travellers who had registered their travel details in the online service were provided information and guidance in 109 emergencies in different parts of the world. Information was sent in cases ranging from natural catastrophes to terrorist attacks.

Demand for the consular services provided by the Ministry and its missions abroad is also on the increase. In 2017, over 67,400 consular assistance cases were recorded compared with 55,000 in 2016.
Finland’s diplomatic and consular missions abroad have the responsibility to provide advice and to help customers find a solution to their situation independently. The missions also provide assistance to Finnish nationals in distress abroad.

The most common reason for seeking consular assistance is an expired or lost passport or other travel document problems.  Many countries require a passport that is valid for six months after the end of the visit to their country. Finnish missions abroad granted a total of 18,795 new passports.

In 2017, the first year when identity cards were issued in Finnish missions abroad, a total of 1,875 identity cards were issued.

The majority of the services involved provision of guidance only. Many cases were handled through the Ministry’s 24/7 service which, as required, referred them to the embassy or consulate in question. The Ministry’s 24/7 service is responsible for the on-call arrangements of all diplomatic and consular missions abroad outside their office hours.

In 2017, the missions and the Ministry handled reports of 519 deaths abroad. As many as 432 persons needed consular assistance due to an illness or accident abroad.  The missions assisted 175 travellers who had fallen victims of crime and 213 Finns arrested or imprisoned abroad.

The countries with the most cases of consular assistance were Spain (752), Estonia (211), Thailand (187), Sweden (109) and Russia (109).

The most frequently visited content on the Foreign Ministry’s website is travel advice. The Ministry publishes travel advice bulletins on 150 countries, focusing on their long-term security situation.

The Foreign Ministry recommends that all Finns travelling abroad take out a comprehensive travel insurance and that they get familiar with the terms and conditions of the insurance policy in advance.

Source: Finland.ee
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Visa applications by Russians up nearly 60 per cent

By
Helena-Reet Ennet
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NordenBladet — A total of 827,475 Schengen visa applications to visit Finland were submitted in 2017, resulting in 816,796 issued visas. In 2017, Russians submitted 60% more visa applications to Finland than in 2016. The number of visa applications made in Asian countries was also up.

Russians lodged by far the greatest number of visa application to visit Finland in 2017, accounting for 88% of all visa applications to Finland. Finland issued a total of 727,224 visas in Russia, compared 89,572 visas issued in other countries combined.

Russians like to travel short distances and come to Finland on shopping trips, for example. They submitted a total of 464,899 visa applications in 2016 and 729,961 in 2017. The peak year was 2013, when Finnish diplomatic missions in Russia received a total of 1.5 million visa applications.

Finland’s Consulate General in St. Petersburg processes most applications; 81% of the Schengen visas issued by Finland in 2017 were applied in St. Petersburg. Altogether 589,476 visas were issued in St. Petersburg in 2017, compared to 352,676 in 2016. The Consulate General in St. Petersburg also represents Austria in visa matters.

Finland’s Embassy in Moscow issued 69,426 visas in 2017 (63,314 in 2016), accounting for 9.7% of all visas issued in Russia.
Finland’s office in Petrozavodsk issued 40,805 visas in 2017 (24,953 in 2016), which was 5.69% of all Schengen visas issued to Finland. The Petrozavodsk office handles visa matters in the Republic of Karelia, representing also Sweden and the Netherlands.
Finland’s office in Murmansk issued 27,517 visas in 2017 (15,643 in 2016), accounting for 3.67% of all Schengen visas issued by Finland in Russia. The Murmansk office grants visas to residents in the Murmansk area, representing also Iceland in visa matters.

Growth in Asia
The number of visa applications to visit Finland was up in many Asian countries in 2017.
Finland’s Embassy in Beijing, for example, had a growth rate of 33%. In 2017, it issued 21,317 Schengen visas, compared to 16,325 in 2016.
Finland has outsourced visa services in Russia so that nearly all visa applications aresubmitted to visa centres operated by an external actor, VFS Global. Visa services have been outsourced even elsewhere. In 2017, they were outsourced in Algeria, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Kosovo, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco and Vietnam.

Source: Finland.ee
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Anne-Mari Virolainen: Finland grants EUR 32 million to improving food security in crises

By
Helena-Reet Ennet
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NordenBladet — Finland supports the World Food Programme (WFP) by EUR 32 million as core support for 2018–2021. “Because of the prolonged conflicts and climate change, the number of hungry people in the world has unfortunately started to rise again. WFP has a key role in combatting hunger. This multiannual core support enables the organisation to plan its operations in a way that is more timely and cost-efficient”, says Anne-Mari Virolainen, Minister of Foreign Trade and Development of Finland.

The WFP under the United Nations is one of the world’s largest humanitarian organisations, which helps annually about 80 million people in about 80 countries. It has more than 14,000 employees, about 90% of them working in the recipient countries.

WFP supplies food aid in emergency situations. In development cooperation the focus is on nutrition, especially that of mothers and children. The programme priorities include nutrition during pregnancy and for children up to the age of two, and later on the work is done especially through school meals. WFP has carried out food programmes in schools around the world for more than 50 years.

Source: Finland.ee
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Evaluation: The focus of Finnfund’s investment activities successfully shifted to the poorest countries

By
Helena-Reet Ennet
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NordenBladet —  An increasing share of the investment portfolio of the State’s development financing company Finnfund is now invested in the poorest countries and in high-risk projects that have significant development impacts, reveals a recent evaluation. The evaluation of the development financing company Finnfund’s special risk financing, commissioned from the consulting and auditing company KPMG by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, has been completed.

“The evaluation indicates that special risk financing has worked out as planned—that is, shifted the focus of the company’s investment portfolio to the poorest countries and to high-risk projects with significant development impacts that would otherwise find it difficult to get financing,” says Satu Santala, Director General at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

“In the post-financial crisis, low-interest rate world, the availability of short-term loans has improved even for developing countries. However, the bottleneck has been loan funding and equity funding that tolerate risks, are invested for a long term and promote sustainable development. Finnfund has been able to tackle this challenge,” Santala goes on to say.

In practice, special risk financing meant that potential credit or investment losses incurred by special risk financing investments could be partly covered with the loss guarantee granted by the State. The loss compensation commitment was valid for 2012–2015 and restricted to EUR 50 million.  The guarantee covers 16 corporate projects, 14 of which have been launched without any losses so far.

Altogether, 81 per cent of investments are in LDC countries, 6 per cent in other lower income countries and 13 per cent in lower middle income countries. Ten investment projects are located in Africa, five in Asia and one has Latin America as its target area. Many of the investments are allocated to sustainable forestry and renewable energy projects.

“The share of investments in the least developed countries has been approximately 2.5 times higher than in 2008–2011, the four-year period preceding the special risk financing period. This is something to be proud of,” says Santala.

The guarantee was needed to enable the company to make investments that involved different risk levels but also exceptionally good development impacts. Factors affecting the risk level include, for instance, the destination country, the investment volume and the industry. Finnfund had carried out similar projects before special risk financing but now the company could increase their volume.

“For instance, without special risk financing, Finnfund could not have been involved in financing Africa’s largest wind power park at Lake Turkana in Kenya. It would have been too large a project in relation to the rest of Finnfund’s investment portfolio,” Santala notes.

Since the 2000s, Finnfund has shifted the focus of its investment activities to the poorest countries, a development that has been accelerated by special risk financing. Currently, LDC countries account for approximately a third (34%) and other low income countries for roughly a fifth (18%) of all investments. The shares are clearly larger than among, for instance, other European development financing companies on average.

Source: Finland.ee
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Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini will visit Kiev, Ukraine from 5 to 6 March

By
Helena-Reet Ennet
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NordenBladet — Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini will visit Kiev from 5 to 6 March. Foreign Minister Timo Soini will hold bilateral discussions with Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin. The Foreign Ministers will discuss the relations between their countries and Finland’s increasing support for Ukraine. Other topics on their agenda will be the current situation in Ukraine, the implementation of the Minsk agreements, as well as reforms in Ukraine and its relations with the EU.

Finland’s development cooperation allocated to Ukraine will be EUR 15 million in 2018–2021. The support will be channelled to projects in the education and energy sectors. A cooperation agreement in the education sector between Finland and Ukraine will be signed during the visit.

Foreign Minister Soini will also meet Hanna Hopko, Head of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee of Ukraine, and Gizo Uglava, Deputy Director of the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine, and Finnish experts working for the EU, the Council of Europe and the World Bank. Finland and Ukraine are celebrating the centenary of diplomatic relations between their countries this year.

Source: Finland.ee
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Finland to support security troops in the Sahel region

By
Helena-Reet Ennet
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NordenBladet —  Finland will fund the development of joint security troops in the Sahel region with EUR 900 000. The support will be channelled via the EU’s African Peace Facility fund, to be used to provide the troops with material support and services. Finland’s contribution cannot be directed to buy weapons or other lethal material.

The five countries located in the Sahel region (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger) decided, at the beginning of 2017, to set up joint security forces. The aim of this initiative was to counter security threats in the region, such as terrorism, drug trafficking and human smuggling. The security troops will consist of 5000 soldiers.

The G5 troops will require, however, external support to become fully operational. The European Commission has decided to support the initiative and has created a support mechanism for this purpose.

“It is a positive sign that the countries in the region assume responsibility for their own security. As a result, the region’s problems are less likely to have spill-over effects on Europe”, says Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini.

A high-level conference will take place, on 23 February in Brussels, on the political situation, security and development in the Sahel region. Prime Minister Juha Sipilä will represent Finland at the conference.

Source: Finland.ee
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Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Anne-Mari Virolainen to EU development ministers’ meeting

By
Helena-Reet Ennet
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NordenBladet —  An Informal meeting of EU development ministers will be organised in Brussels on 20 February 2018. Finland’s representative at the meeting will be Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Anne-Mari Virolainen. The ministers will discuss, among other things, EU’s financial instruments for external action after 2020, on which decisions will be made in the forthcoming negotiations concerning the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).

Finland considers it important that the EU’s financial instruments for external action respond to the current needs and support the political priorities of the EU better than before. “The EU must retain its lead role in development cooperation matters, and assistance must be channelled to those who need it the most. Special attention must be paid to impact and effectiveness,” Minister Virolainen says.

The EU’s actions on migration are currently financed from multiple sources.  Finland emphasises the development of coordination between different financial instruments as a way to avoid overlap and to increase the efficiency of the activities.

The EU is shaping its relationship with the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) up to the present time. The cooperation is based on the Cotonou Agreement, which will expire in 2020. Finland considers that the relations between the EU and the ACP countries should be in line with the goals of the 2030 Agenda and the priorities of the new European Consensus on Development. The special treatment accorded to the ACP countries should end and the partnership should be open to all developing countries that commit themselves to the principles of the agreement that concern human rights and democracy. The EU is to reach agreement about the negotiation mandate when the Foreign Affairs (Development) Council (FAC) meets on 22 May 2018, because the Post-Cotonou negotiations with the ACP will start in August 2018.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has made a proposal to establish a new subsidiary focusing on development finance to boost the use and allocation of EIB resources and to enhance the visibility of the EIB in third countries. Finland is prepared to look into the proposal in more detail when further information is available on the structure and possible administrative scenarios of the proposal.

At lunch, ministers will discuss the reform of the UN development system with Achim Steiner, Administrator of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Source: Finland.ee
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Foreign Minister Soini to Japan and South Korea

By
Helena-Reet Ennet
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NordenBladet —  On 20–27 February, Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini will visit Tokyo, Seoul and the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. In Tokyo Minister Timo Soini will meet the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan Taro Kono. The ministers will discuss bilateral relations on the basis of the joint statement on the strategic partnership between the countries given in 2016. Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Finland and Japan. The ministers will also talk about the relations between the EU and Japan, Russia, situation in the Korean Peninsula, and closer cooperation in multilateral issues.

During the visit Minister Soini will also meet representatives of the Japanese Parliamentary Friendship Group with Finland and talk at an event of the Japan National Press Club (JNPC).  All national and local media representatives are members of the JNPC. In his speech Minister Soini will highlight the importance of a rule-based international order.

From Tokyo Minister Soini will travel to Seoul. During the visit to South Korea Soini will meet the Minister of Foreign Affairs of South Korea Kang Kyung-wha. The topics to be discussed include bilateral relations between Finland and South Korea and the situation in the Korean Peninsula. This is the first meeting between the two Foreign Ministers, and the aim is to further strengthen Finland’s relations with South Korea.

Also on the agenda is a visit to the demilitarised zone between South and North Korea and to the South Korean Parliament and meetings with other experts on the situation in the Korean Peninsula. Foreign Minister Soini will also visit the XXIII Winter Olympics in PyeongChang in South Korea.

Source: Finland.ee
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Merikasarmi lit up in February in honour of Lithuania and Estonia

By
Helena-Reet Ennet
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NordenBladet — The Ministry for Foreign Affairs will illuminate the seaside façade of Merikasarmi, its main building, on 16 February to mark the 100th anniversary of Lithuania’s independence and on 24 February for Estonia’s 100th anniversary.

Merikasarmi is architect Carl Ludvig Engel’s first major architectural design in Helsinki. The Foreign Ministry’s main building was completed in 1820. The illumination is a part of the Ministry’s own centenary celebrations. The façade of Merikasarmi was also illuminated in blue and white in honour of Finland’s 100 years of independence in 2017.

Source: Finland.ee
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