"Practical support of Finland for reforms in Ukraine will be increased", Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland Timo Soini said on the results of the talks with Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin on March 5, 2018.

To demonstrate good examples of such support Pavlo Klimkin mentioned the Intergovernmental Agreement on the implementation of the project "Finnish support for the reform of the Ukrainian school" which was signed during the visit, as well as cooperation in the field of energy efficiency. For his part, Minister Timo Soini informed about the Finnish Government decision to create a Trust fund to finance energy efficiency projects in Ukraine to be implemented by Nordic Environment Finance Corporation NEFCO.

Both Ministers positively noted the 17% growth of bilateral trade in 2017, stating that the next meeting of the Intergovernmental Ukrainian-Finnish Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation in September, 2018 in Kyiv should consolidate this dynamics.

Timo Soini assured of Finland’s unwavering support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and underlined that the official Helsinki condemns the attempted annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. Talking about the counteraction to the Russian aggression in Donbas, Pavlo Klimkin welcomed the principal readiness of the Finnish side to participate in the UN peacekeeping operation. The Head of the Foreign policy office of Finland stressed that “the keys to resolving the situation in Donbas are in the Kremlin”, and Finland believes that currently there are no grounds to remove sanctions from Russia.

Discussing the “Nord Stream-2” project realization, Minister Timo Soini stressed the necessity of unconditional fulfillment by “Gazprom” of the international obligations, including the decisions of the Stockholm arbitrage. He also underlined that Finland supports Ukraine as a reliable transit gas supplier to Europe.