Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly returns to Europe on Sunday to coordinate the response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine with allied countries.
She must go to Finland, Germany and finally Belgium, where she will take part in the meeting of foreign ministers of the G7 countries and that of the NATO allies.
In Finland, Canada wishes to express its ambition to contribute more to the collaborative effort in the Arctic, in order to counterbalance the influence of Russia in this region of the world. Mélanie Joly is due to meet her Finnish counterpart, Pekka Haavisto, in Helsinki on this subject.
In March, the Arctic Council countries decided to boycott their presence at this forum, since it is currently chaired by Russia. Canada, the United States, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden wanted to protest against the invasion of Ukraine, which caused “serious obstacles to international cooperation, including in the ‘Arctic’.
“Countering Disinformation”
Minister Joly will also join a coalition in Germany in support of Moldova, a country neighboring Ukraine and currently receiving a large number of refugees. The Minister’s office specifies that several of these European judgments have the ambition of finding ways to “counter Russian disinformation”.
Mélanie Joly is one of the sixty or so Quebecers recently banned from Russia. She made another trip to Europe in early March, during which she visited Switzerland, Poland, Belgium and Romania. She also visited Ukraine earlier this year, before the invasion. In December, she had managed to exchange a few words with her Russian counterpart about the risk of armed conflict in Ukraine, during a chance meeting on the sidelines of a forum in Stockholm, Sweden.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine on February 24, Canada claims to have sanctioned more than 700 people or companies from Russia and its ally, Belarus.