13.2.2007: Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Parliament, and 80's hits
Tuesday morning started with a seminar organised by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. The purpose of the seminar was to give the delegates background information on crisis management as well as discuss issues related to it from different perspectives. We were lucky to have many experts and great speakers to tell us facts about UN peace-keeping operations, European Security and Defence Policy as well as the role of private diplomacy and NGOs in peace negotiations and crisis management among others. The speakers were experts from the Foreign Ministry, from the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and CMI (Crisis Management Initiative). The fruitful and lively discussion ended with a reception. Unfortunately Erkki Tuomioja, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland, couldn't host the reception as originally planned because he had caught a flu.
Right after the seminar we continued to the Parliament of Finland which also had kindly organised us a mini seminar on the work of the Finnish Parliament and the Finnish political scene in general. We heard presentations from two members of the Finnish Parliament. The first speaker, Mr. Jari Vil?n, represented the National Coalition Party (a conservative) whereas the second speaker, Ms. Outi Ojala, is a member of Left Alliance. Even though they clearly disagreed with each other on certain issues, their arguments were constructive. However, following the plenary session of the Parliament afterwards clearly showed us that the two parties also have their different views on politics. Although only a few MPs were present at the plenary and even though they were speaking in Finnish, our foreign participants found it very interesting to see MPs Esko-Juhani Tennil? and Ben Zyskowicz to have a heated debate concerning small entrepreneurs.
In the evening we had a great opportunity to learn more about Somalia by meeting people from the Finland-Somalia association as well as tasting traditional Somali food. The evening programme provided us with an opportunity to see Somalia also from other perspectives than only from the perspective of solving its crisis.It was probably the first time for many of our participants to taste Somali food and everybody seemed to enjoy it.
After the official programme of the day, many delegates and organisers got together at beer house Kaisla to continue the day's discussions as well as to relax after a long and very hectic but on the other hand interesting day. Some even continued to the Lady Moon night club where hits of the 80's were welcomed with loud cheers and a Nordic Path was tried. Those of you who do not know what a Nordic Path is are probably able to find more about them and Nordic Highways during the latter part of the week.
