Finland to boost business cooperation with Czech

Prime Minister Juha Sipilä on Monday said that Finland and Czech Republic should increase bilateral business cooperation.

“We should increase business cooperation especially in the fields of transport, health, energy and the circular economy. I hope we can proceed quickly in these sectors and achieve some concrete results,” said Sipilä in a Czech-Finnish Business Seminar.

The seminar was held to look at the cooperation between Czech and Finnish companies and their future prospects where the visiting Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babiš was also present.

After the seminar Sipilä held bilateral talks with his counterpart of Czech Republic Andrej Babiš in Helsinki.

The Prime Ministers discussed topical EU matters, such as the forthcoming multiannual financial framework, the development of the Economic and Monetary Union and the agenda of the June European Council.

“We had a good conversation about the EU’s forthcoming financial framework and concluded that Finland and the Czech Republic have a lot in common. Both countries support strong agricultural and cohesion policies and the advancing of digitalisation, innovation and economic growth. We also agreed that funding is a more effective means of achieving concrete results than bureaucracy,” Sipilä said.

“We talked about the EMU and migration, which will be key issues on the next European Council agenda. Common development efforts are needed on both issues. We also discussed the priorities of Finland’s forthcoming EU Presidency,” the Finnish Prime Minister added.

During his visit to Finland, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Czech Republic becoming a participating country of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats.