Commissioner Piebalgs is in Finland to promote development policy
Andris Piebalgs, the European Commissioner for Development, visits Finland on 9 July. He held meetings with Alexander Stubb, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Paavo Väyrynen, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development to discuss latest development policy issues. He also met with the civil society representatives from ca. 16 major Finnish NGOs to discuss various areas of development policy with non-governmental actors.
In particular, Commissioner Piebalgs and Minister Väyrynen discussed the letter on the future of development policy sent by the Commissioner earlier this year. This meeting also served the purpose to laid the ground and discuss a common position ahead of the High Level UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals which takes place in September in New York.
In development cooperation, Finland is a good performer both in quantity and quality terms. The Finnish Development Policy Programme has stated the Government's commitment to ensuring that development cooperation appropriations will take Finland towards 0.7%.
