On Friday, Mayor Mihhail Kõlvart met with the Mayor of Helsinki Jan Vapaavuori online to summarize the development of collaboration between the two cities and set new goals for the next cooperation agreement.

Both mayors emphasized that in addition to the growing opportunities for partnership between cities in international organizations and networks, the strategic cooperation between the two neighbouring cities has great potential. "It is important that, as a result of twin city cooperation, specific projects with tangible results are implemented. The priority topics of our collaboration were and will remain mobility, projects in the field of environment and smart city, joint applications based on open data, joint marketing of the twin cities and the region, and of course the digital sector,” said Mayor Kõlvart.

The mayors agreed that these are the areas that will be the priorities of the new memorandum of understanding and action plan for 2022-2025.

Regular meetings between Vapaavuori and Kõlvart have so far taken place twice a year, alternately in Helsinki and Tallinn, and their main goal is to review the implementation of the twin city memorandum of understanding action plan 2018–2021. This official meeting of mayors will be the last, as both Tallinn and Helsinki are facing local elections and Jan Vapaavuori has announced his withdrawal from politics.