News

During a meeting in Vilnius on 12-13 October, foreign affairs ministers of the Baltic States and Benelux countries discussed the implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon, institutional issues of the European Union, NATO’s new Strategic Concept and EU’s relations with Eastern European countries. On the subject of NATO’s new Strategic Concept that is currently being drafted, Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Vygaudas Ušackas stressed that this document had to have a clearly ingrained supremacy of the principle of collective defence and to reflect tendencies of strengthening of transatlantic relations.

 “The Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty has to remain a fundamental provision of collective defence,” Minister V.Ušackas said.

The Ministers expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the referendum in Ireland, completion of the ratification process of the Treaty of Lisbon in Poland and invited member states to complete the ratification of the Treaty in the entire EU as soon as possible.

During the meeting, the shaping of new EU institutions was discussed. The head of Lithuania’s diplomacy stressed that the President of the European Council had to be a person with a global vision who would be able to achieve compromises and would properly represent the interests of the large and small EU member states.

The Ministers discussed the topic of the EU relations with Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus. They agreed to organise a meeting of the Baltic and Benelux foreign ministers with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia during the foreign ministers’ session of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in the beginning of December in Athens. The situation in Georgia would be discussed during this meeting.

Ministers Vygaudas Ušackas (Lithuania), Māris Riekstiņš (Latvia), Urmas Paet (Estonia), Jean Asselborn (Luxembourg), Yves Leterme (Belgium) and Maxime Verhagen (the Netherlands) took part in the meeting in Vilnius.