Foreign Minister Soini to attend EU Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Sofia

The informal meeting of the EU Foreign Ministers (Gymnich) will be held in Sofia on 15-16 February.

Finland's representative in the meeting will be Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini. The topics on the agenda are North Korea, security and defence, the Western Balkans and Syria.

In the talks about North Korea the focus will be on recent events and the EU policy on North Korea.

The ministers will also discuss the situation in Western Balkans on the basis of the Commission strategy concerning the Western Balkans. The discussion on Syria will take place in light of recent developments in the country and preparations relating to the envisaged EU Conference on Syria.

The tradition is that the Foreign Ministers of the EU candidate countries (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey) attend some of the sessions of the informal meeting. In Sofia they will participate in the talks about security and defence issues.

Inquiries: Matti Nissinen, Counsellor, tel. +358 295 535 1780.

The Foreign Ministry’s email addresses are in the format [email protected].