The Finnish municipalities of Hämeenlinna, Tampere, Turku, Vaasa and Vantaa successfully applied to participate in the EU / CoE joint project ‘Building an inclusive integration approach in Finland’ and the first meeting of the municipal coordinators was held online on 23 February 2023.

Thorsten Afflerbach, Head of the Inclusion and Anti-Discrimination Programmes Division at the Council of Europe opened the meeting together with Giulia Porino, Policy Officer at the European Commission (DG REFORM) and Peter Kariuki, Senior Specialist at the Ministry of Justice of Finland, and welcomed the representatives of the participating municipalities.

The municipalities shared their motivations for joining the project, as well as their expectations, and past and current experience on intercultural integration and improving good relations in their municipalities.

After the roundtable, the Council of Europe project team presented the Council of Europe’s intercultural integration approach and some key tools produced under the Intercultural Cities Programme, as well as the expected project outputs, linking them with the expected outcomes for the municipalities.

The meeting served as a kick-off meeting for the project and provided a platform to inform the participating Finnish municipalities on the next steps of the project which include an online training course with peer-to-peer experience sharing elements on 23-24 March 2023.

The joint project “Building an intercultural integration approach in Finland” is co-funded by the European Commission via the Technical Support Instrument (TSI) 2022 and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe’s Intercultural Cities (ICC) Programme in co-operation with the European Commission and the Ministry of Justice of Finland.