10 – 11 December 2019

Delegations of Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic and Finland met within a follow up of Czech-Finnish defence dialogue. In addition, negotiation of 15 Czech defence industry companies with their Finnish partners and representatives on the Ministry of Defence of Finland about possibilities of commercial and production cooperation took place within the follow-up.

30 September – 3 October 2019

Delegation of the Committee on Education, Science, Culture, Human Rights and Petitions of the Senate of the Czech Republic, lead by J. Růžička, first vice-chairman of the Senate, and J. Drahoš, chairman of the committee, visited Finland. Senators learned about the structure of the Finnish educational system and current trends in elementary, secondary and university education. The delegation’s program covered meeting at Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland, meeting committee’s counterpart from Finnish Parliament, visiting Finnish National Agency for Education and discussion on cooperation between universities and commercial sector with the management of Helsinki Innovation Services. Senators also visited two elementary schools and attended a discussion at the embassy with Czech scientists living in Finland.

30 September 2019

Czech Prime Minister A. Babiš met in Prague with Finnish Prime Minister A. Rinne to discuss current EU matters. Main topics were preparations of the multinational financial framework for 2021-2027, climate change, migration and Brexit.

16 – 20 September 2019

Delegation of Electoral Committee of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic, lead by committee’s chairman S. Berkovec, visited Finland. Their goal was to learn about Finnish experience with media regulation and tackling fake news, with media service for minorities and with the working condition of journalists. The delegation met their counterpart committees of the Parliament of Finland and representatives of Swedish-speaking minority. Deputies also visited Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Transport and Communications a Ministry of Interior. The delegation met board members of public broadcasting company Yle, directors of the biggest television companies MTV3 and Nelonen, editors in chief of Finnish newspapers and also visited a European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats.

18 September 2019

Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland Matti Antonen visited Czech Republic to present Finland’s priorities for the Presidency of the Council of the EU. Antonen had a presentation in the Committee on European Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies and was received by Minister of Foreign Affairs T. Petříček. Antonen also met Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs A. Chmelař and State Secretary for European Affairs from the Office of the Government, M. Hrdinková.

18 September 2019

Director of Northern and Eastern Europe Department of Czech MFA Jakub Karfík had a bilateral consultation in Prague with Director of Unit for Central, Western and Southern Europe of Finnish MFA Nicola Lindertz.

11 September 2019

Jari Gustafsson, Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland visited Prague, where he discussed issues of internal EU market with Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic V. Bärtl. V. Bärtl expressed support to Finnish initiatives in the sustainable development field.

4 – 5 July 2019

Vice Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Karel Havlíček arrived in a meeting of the Council of the EU for Competitiveness in Helsinki in a nonconventional way – by Czech training aircraft Zlín-143 piloted by Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade V. Bärtl.  

June 6 – 7, 2019

Deputy State Secretary and Director of Human Resources Department of MFA of the Czech Republic Iveta Chmielová Dalajková participated in Informal Meeting of the EU State Secretaries and Secretaries-General in Helsinki.

May 20 – 21, 2019

Delegation of Public Administration and Regional Development Committee of House of Deputies, Parliament of the Czech Republic, led by its chairman Ivan Bartoš, visited Finland to learn more about Finnish experience with the digitalization of public services (with special focus on construction permit procedure) and implementation of AI. During the visit, the delegation met the management of fully digitalized Construction authority of the city of Vantaa, representatives of 6Aika association (programme for sharing development projects in 6 biggest Finnish cities), representatives of Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Environment and Population Register Centre.

May 16 – 17, 2019

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Tomáš Petříček participated in 129th Session of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. During his stay, Minister Petříček met Finnish candidate for EU commissioner Jutta Urpilainen.

May 16, 2019

Bilateral consultation on the topic of sustainable development with a focus on the reparation of Finland’s presidency in Council’s Working party for Agenda 2030. Deputy Director of Multilateral Economic Relations Department of Czech MFA Veronika Mítková negotiated in Helsinki with Secretary-General of National Commission for Sustainable Development Annika Lindblom, with S. Pirkkala from Prime Minister’s Office and J. Puukki from Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

May 3, 2019

Mr René Miko, Director of the United Nations Department of MFA of the Czech Republic participated in Czech and Finnish expert-level consultation on the topic of mediation. Mr. Miko met a mediation team of Finnish MFA and non-governmental organization Crisis Management Initiative (CMI). The aim of the consultation was to map Finnish mediation activities, the functioning of the mediation team and CMI as well as to discuss the preparation of the joint workshop on mediation and conflict prevention for Czech diplomats.

March 26, 2019

Bilateral consultation of Ms Pilvi-Sisko Vierros-Villeneuve, Director General of the Department for Europe of Finnish MFA, at Czech MFA in Prague. Ms Vierros-Villeneuve had a discussion with Mr Aleš Chmelař, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic responsible for European Section and with Mr Martin Povejšil, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs responsible for Security and Multilateral Affair Section.

March 14 – 15, 2019

Mr Miloslav Stašek, State Secretary of MFA of the Czech Republic participated in economic diplomacy project organized by the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Helsinki (meeting of Czech and Finnish construction companies). During his visit, Mr Stašek negotiated with Mr Markku Keinänen, Under Secretary of State for External Economic Relations of Finnish MFA, about possibilities of making the system of economic diplomacy more efficient in both countries.

February 27 – 28, 2019

Visit of Czech inter-ministerial delegation led by Chief Digital Officer Vladimír Dzurilla. The objective of this visit was to learn more about Finnish experience in the field of public service digitalisation (focusing on construction permit procedure and state-owned property maintenance). Delegation members met the management of a company focusing of state-owned property maintenance, representatives of Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, representatives of municipalities and leading person of government digitalisation project.   

February 22, 2019

Mr Antonín Staněk, Minister of Culture of the Czech Republic, opened an exhibition of František Kupka’s paintings in Atheneum Art Museum in Helsinki. Within this visit, Mr Staněk met his Finnish counterpart, Mr Sampo Terho, Minister for European Affairs, Culture and Sport, and also visited Finnish National Opera and Balet where he met Czech dancers.

February 21, 2019

Mr Martin Smolek, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs responsible for Legal and Consular Section, visited Finland for the occasion of the opening of Honorary Consulate of the Czech Republic in Tampere. During his stay, Mr Smolek also negotiated with his Finnish counterpart, Mr Pasi Tuominen, Director General of Consular Services of MFA.

February 19, 2019

Visit of Ms Paula Risikko, Speaker of the Finnish Parliament, in the Czech Republic. During her stay, Ms Risikko met Speakers of both chambers of the Parliament of the Czech Republic – Mr Radek Vondráček, Speaker of the House of Deputies, and Mr Jaroslav Kubera, Speaker of the Senate, as well as members of Parliamentary Committee for European Affairs. At the end of the day, Mr Risikko participated in working dinner organized by the Nordic Friendship Group of the Czech Parliament since there were also two members of Finnish Parliament that are also members of Finnish Parliamentary Group of Friends of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, visiting Prague at the moment.