Heidi Hautala is Vice-President of the European Parliament, Member of the European Parliament in the Greens/EFA group. She was elected as Vice-President of the European Parliament in October 2017 and serves on the Committee on International Trade and the Subcommittee on Human Rights. In 2017, she established a Working Group on Responsible Business Conduct in the European Parliament.

In Finland, Ms Hautala served as a Member of Parliament from 1991 to 1995 and from 2003 to 2009. From 2011 to 2013, she was the Minister for International Development and State Ownership Steering.

She holds a Master’s degree in Agriculture and Forestry.

Nils Torvalds, Member of the European Parliament since 2012, represents Swedish People’s Party of Finland (SFP) and the centrist-liberal group Renew Europe. He is for the moment a member in the committees for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and for Budgets, while being a substitute in the committee for Industry, Research and Energy. He is the spokesperson and coordinator for his parliamentary group in the committee for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. He is also working with EU-Russia and EU-US relations in respective parliamentary delegations in the European Parliament.

Aku Aarva is a board member and treasurer of the European Movement International and the executive director of Urban Energy Finland, an association representing Finnish urban energy companies.

Dr Juha Jokela is the Programme Director of the European Union research programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Dr Jokela’s previous academic and policy studies projects and publications include the EU’s sanctions policy, political implications of Brexit for the EU, political and security developments in the Arctic, Europeanisation of foreign policy, EU’s Asia relations, and Finland’s EU policy. His current research interests include differentiated integration in EU’s foreign policy, and the role of G7 and G20 in multilateral cooperation. Jokela is a member of the board of Trans European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA), member of the Steering Committee of EuroMesCo, the main network of research centres and think-tanks in the Euro-Mediterranean area, and member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP).

Maria Blässar, a Finnish national, has pursued a career of over 20 years in different EU/EEA institutions and in the Finnish administration. During the past 13 years she has worked in the Commission Representations in two Nordic capitals – Helsinki and Stockholm. She is currently the Head of Commission Representation in Helsinki.  Prior to this, she was the Head of Press and Media Team at the Commission Representation in Sweden. Her tasks in the Representations have included political reporting, media work, communication activities and managerial tasks.

Maria Blässar holds a Master of Social Studies from the University of Helsinki and a one-year Master of Science in European Studies of the London School of Economics.

Tyyne Karjalainen is a Researcher in the European Union research programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Her research focuses on European Union foreign and security policy, EU enlargement and differentiated integration in the EU. Her publications also cover peace-building, crisis management and peace mediation. Before joining FIIA, Karjalainen worked at the Civilian Security Sector Reform Component at the European Union Advisory Mission (EUAM) in Ukraine, the Research and Development Unit of the Crisis Management Centre (CMC) Finland, and the Finnish Permanent Representation to the United Nations in New York. Karjalainen is a doctoral student in political science at the University of Turku focusing on the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood policies. She holds a degree from the Master’s Programme in Peace, Mediation and Conflict Research at the University of Tampere.

Totti Sivonen has been Executive Director of European Movement Finland since November 2022. Prior to his current role, Totti worked for the organisation first as a trainee and later as an EU-specialist. Sivonen graduated in 2021 from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland with a major in Politics and International Relations and is currently studying in the European and Nordic Studies Masters programme at the University of Helsinki.

Ninni Norra (b.2001) represented Finland in the Conference on the Future of Europe and was a member of the committee on Values and Rights, Rule of Law, and Security. She co-leads the EU magazine Tähdistö as its editor-in-chief and has a diverse background in foreign affairs, economics, and civil society. She was recently named Ashoka Nordic’s Young Changemaker of the Year for her initiative Olea Think. Norra studies analytics, data management, and computer science at Aalto University School of Business.