News

From a country with no decision rights in international policy Lithuania has turned into an independent, decision-making and equivalent state over the past twenty years, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Audronius Ažubalis said on 24 November during the event that was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to mark the role of the Lithuanian diplomatic service in ensuring the continuity of Lithuania’s statehood.

“We have taken a historic step away from being an enslaved nation, deprived of all rights and with decisions made for us. We have come a long way since the days when our efforts to integrate into Europe were evaluated and decisions were made regarding us until the greatest achievements of the re-established State of Lithuania and its diplomacy – joining NATO and the European Union in 2004. Today Lithuania is an equal partner among partners who determine the future of Europe and the world,” the Minister said.

Minister A.Ažubalis emphasized the historic contribution of the Lithuanian diplomatic service into the preservation of Lithuania’s statehood.

According to the Minister, already Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas cared not only about the defence of the state, but also about its economic power. The letters of Gediminas that he had sent to Europe proclaimed that Lithuania was an open country to the artists, artisans, thinkers and educators of the day, guaranteed equal rights and protection, without discriminating among people on the basis of their ethnicity or religious beliefs. Minister A.Ažubalis thinks that today this would be called as investment and technology promotion and protection, tolerance, and economic diplomacy.

“Lithuanian diplomacy did not decline also during the times of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. This year we celebrate the 245th birthday anniversary of statesman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Mykolas Kleopas Oginskis (Michał Kleofas Ogiński), who was Ambassador of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to the Netherlands, Great Britain,” Minister A.Ažubalis said.

At the beginning of the occupation in 1940, the Lithuanian diplomatic service went into exile and continued its work there under difficult conditions. The diplomatic service was the only institution of independent Lithuania, which ensured the continuity of statehood until the restoration of Lithuania’s independence in 1990.

When speaking about today’s current affairs, Minister A.Ažubalis stressed that Lithuania’s foreign policy was consistent and the international environment had never been safer for Lithuania as today.

“The agenda of the Lithuanian diplomatic service has become less visible, less “heroic”, but this is the way it should be in a normal, stable and self-confident country, which deals with a far broader set of issues. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is now also a ministry for foreign trade, European affairs, development cooperation and Lithuanians living abroad,” Minister A.Ažubalis said.

The event at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was attended by President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė, Chairman of the Supreme Council-Reconstituent Seimas Vytautas Landsbergis, Minister of Foreign Affairs A.Ažubalis, former Foreign Ministers and Chairmen of Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Seimas (Parliament), representatives from the Seimas, the Office of the President and the Government.

Foreign Minister A.Ažubalis conferred a Medal of the Ministry for the Merits in the Diplomatic Service on Birutė Fedaravičienė, a former employee at the Lithuanian Consulate General in Vilnius in 1939, who issued thousands of transit visas to Polish and Jewish refugees when the Second World War broke out. Medals were also conferred on the first diplomatic representative of Lithuania in Afghanistan Dainius Baublys and on diplomat Viktoras Dagilis for organizing the provision of aid by the Lithuanian Embassy in Georgia to citizens who were in Georgia during the Russia-Georgia war, as well as on diplomat Lina Žukauskaitė, who sought to help ill children in Lithuania when she worked at the Embassy of Lithuania in Japan.

To view more photos of the event, please click here.