News

On 28 August in Greenland, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis attended a ministerial conference of the European Union member states and partner states for discussing the implementation of the Action Plan under the Northern Dimension initiative. At the conference, the Lithuanian Minister underscored that the EU’s Northern Dimension initiative put forward by the Nordic States five years ago had become a solid factor of regional cooperation and integration into Northern Europe. Implementation of the Northern Dimension initiative and its Action Plan held the EU’s attention on the European North-East Region and this attention would have to be retained in the future. The head of Lithuanian diplomacy stressed that smooth integration of candidate states of the region into the EU and active relations of partnership with the Russian Federation were the principal aims of the EU Northern Dimension initiative and should remain so in the future. After the EU’s external borders would have changed, a new Action Plan of the Northern Dimension should reflect activities of the initiative related to Eastern neighbours, especially to Ukraine and Belarus. Minister Valionis emphasised that especial attention should be paid to infrastructure projects by engaging the Kaliningrad Region of the Russian Federation. Lithuania is already carrying out the so-called Nida initiative for cooperation between Lithuanian frontier regions and the Kaliningrad Region.