President of the Republic of Finland to host JEF Leaders’ Summit in Helsinki

Office of the President of the Republic of Finland
Press release 14/2026
17 March 2026 

President of the Republic of Finland Alexander Stubb will host a JEF Leaders’ Summit at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki on Thursday 26 March 2026.

In addition to President Stubb, the summit will be attended by Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Keir Starmer, President of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda, Prime Minister of Norway Jonas Gahr Støre, Prime Minister of Sweden Ulf Kristersson, Prime Minister of Latvia Evika Siliņa, Prime Minister of Estonia Kristen Michal, Prime Minister of Iceland Kristrún Frostadóttir and Prime Minister of the Netherlands Rob Jetten. Representation of the Kingdom of Denmark will be announced at a later date. Besides the JEF leaders, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney will participate in the meeting remotely.

The discussions at the Presidential Palace will be held in three sessions, focusing among other things on the support provided by the JEF nations to Ukraine and on the general security situation in Europe.

During the day, the heads of state and government of the JEF countries will visit a Finnish Border Guard offshore patrol vessel for a briefing on the Border Guard’s maritime operations. The vessel can be used year-round and in all conditions in the Baltic Sea for maintenance of border security, search and rescue operations, oil-spill response at sea and surveillance of territorial waters.

The day will conclude with a dinner hosted by President Stubb.

The Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) is a multilateral framework for defence cooperation led by the United Kingdom. In addition to the UK, the other participants are Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The objective is to develop the military capabilities of the participating countries through joint exercises, to prevent crises and, if necessary, to operate together in crisis situations. JEF’s main operating environment is Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea region.

The JEF leaders last met in May 2025 in Norway.