News

On 29 April in Helsinki, during the meetings with Finland’s President Tarja Halonen and Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb, Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis discussed initiatives to improve the environmental situation in the Baltic Sea, cooperation on nuclear safety matters, and cooperation between the Baltic States and Nordic countries.

According to President T.Halonen, Finland supports the initiative to strengthen regional cooperation, which was announced by President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė and aims to clean the Baltic Sea from explosives and dangerous chemicals that are left over from the World War II.

The initiative by the head of Lithuania to take joint action to clean the Baltic Sea from explosives was brought up during the Baltic Sea Action Summit that was held in Helsinki in February. The summit was dedicated to environmental issues affecting the Baltic Sea.

Minister A.Ažubalis acquainted Finland’s President with Lithuania’s plans to initiate a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on cooperation regarding the sea-dumped chemical weapons at an international level.

The Minister drew attention of heads of Finland to the plans regarding the construction of nuclear power plants in the region and suggested to promote cooperation on nuclear safety issues between the Lithuanian and Finnish experts.

Minister A.Ažubalis acquainted Finland’s Foreign Minister with priorities of Lithuania’s chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2011 and thanked Finland for its support in preparation for this chairmanship. This country held the OSCE chairmanship in 2008.

The Ministers discussed the creation of the European External Action Service and relations with countries of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership initiative.

The participants of the meetings in Helsinki agreed to search for ways to strengthen the cooperation between the Baltic States and Nordic countries, discussed the initiative to establish the wise men group of the Baltic States and Northern European countries, which would assess key challenges in the region and would provide suggestions regarding the strengthening of the cooperation between the Baltic States and Nordic countries, aiming to promote region’s competitiveness.

Energy security was also discussed. Currently, Finland is the only EU member state, which constructs nuclear reactors. Therefore, its experience is relevant to Lithuania.

On 29 April in Helsinki, Minister A.Ažubalis also met with Chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee of Finland’s Parliament Pertti Salolainen. During the seminar “Independence Regained: The Baltic States Back on the World Map” at the Aleksanteri Institute of the University of Helsinki Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs delivered an opening speech.