News

During a regular Baltic-German foreign ministers’ meeting on 11 June in Tallinn, Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis presented the priorities of Lithuania’s chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2011 and held a discussion on the results of the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS).

Minister A.Ažubalis noted that as the OSCE chairmanship,Lithuania would aim to continue the dialogue on European security (the Corfu Process) and called on the EU member states to take a common position with regard to the process.

Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs presented the 8th Baltic Sea States Summit that took place on 1-2 June in Vilnius and the activities of the Council of the Baltic Sea States to the participants of the meeting.

Head of Lithuania’s diplomacy said that he regarded the CBSS as a key regional forum for political discussions with the EU member states, Russia, Norway and Iceland participating in it.

Minister A.Ažubalis acquainted the participants of the meeting with Lithuania’s opinion about the EU’s Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and highlighted the importance of ensuring funding for the Strategy and the necessity to allocate more EU’s support to the infrastructure and energy projects of the region.

During the meeting, the energy security in Europe, EU-Russia relations, NATO’s Strategic Concept and the implementation of the EU Eastern Partnership initiative were also discussed.

The ministers discussed the conference that would be held on 20 July in Kabul. Minister A.Ažubalis expressed concern about the slow progress in Afghanistan.

The Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and German foreign ministers - A.Ažubalis, Aivis Ronis, Urmas Paet and Guido Westerwelle - attended the meeting in Tallinn. The next meeting will be held in Germany in 2011.