Medvedev heads to Oulu

It is a busy year-end for political talks between Moscow and its Nordic neighbours. Earlier this week, Russia’s Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Sergey Donskoy met three ministers in Oslo, discussing bilateral issues in the north like oil and gas, bilateral trade and Nikel-pollution. The Norwegian-Russian ministerial meetings were the first since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014.

Last week, the Finnish-Russian trade commission met again in Moscow for the first time in three and a half years. The week before, Finland’s Interior Minister Paula Risikko went to Moscow for meeting with several high-ranking security officials.

Today, the Prime Minister’s office in Helsinki announces that Dmitri Medvedev will come to Oulu, northern Finland on Friday December 9.

“The prime ministers will discuss bilateral relations between the two countries, among other things. Other matters on the agenda include topical international questions,” the short note from the office reads.

Medvedev is invited to Oulu by Prime Minister Juha Sipilä who last time met the Russian Prime Minister in St. Petersburg last January.

South of Oulu, in Pyhäjoki, Finland is set to build a new nuclear power plant with Russian reactor technology. Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom’s Finnish subsidiary RAOS Voima also owns 34% of the shares in Fennovoima, the company to build the plant.

With an estimated price tag of €6,5 to €7 billion, the project is by far the most expensive industrial development ever made in the Barents Region. The 34% share is also the largest single-investment Russia ever has made in Finland.

Oulu is the largest city in northern Finland and the fifth largest city in the Barents Region after Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, Petrozavodsk and Syktyvkar. Ealier this autumn, Norway’s King Harald and Foreign Minister Børge Brende visited Oulu.