Minister for European Affairs and Ownership Steering Tytti Tuppurainen will visit Kosovo, North Macedonia and Albania on 3–5 July. The purpose of the visit is to discuss ways to accelerate the EU integration of the countries of the Western Balkans and the security situation in Europe. Minister Tuppurainen will visit the region together with Thomas Byrne, Ireland’s Minister of State for European Affairs.

The United Nations Ocean Conference was held in Lisbon from 27 June to 1 July 2022. At the Conference, states pledged to contribute to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, especially that concerning life below water. Finland’s delegation was led by Minister of Economic Affairs Mika Lintilä. State Secretary Terhi Lehtonen and Permanent Secretary Juhani Damski attended the Conference as well.

Finns are clearly much more worried about the state of nature on the global scale than about the state of Finnish nature. A barometer on the connection to nature was conducted to find out about our relationship with nature and with preserving biodiversity, and how the responsibilities should be divided between the different stakeholders.

On 23 June, the European Council discussed the membership applications from Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia and the support for Ukraine and held a strategic discussion on the EU’s relations with its partners in Europe and the Western Balkans.