News

On 10 March, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius met with representatives of the U.S. non-governmental organizations, who came to Lithuania to participate in an inter-parliamentary discussion “Europe and the United States: Reaffirming Transatlantic Solidarity”, co-organized by the Seimas (Parliament) of Lithuania and the Parliamentary Democracy Forum.

The meeting with Lithuania’s Foreign Minister was attended by the Managing Director of the National Endowment for Democracy Barry Jackson, the Executive Director of the Kleptocracy Initiative at Hudson Institute Charles Davidson and representatives of other non-governmental organizations. On 13 March, Linkevičius will also hold a meeting with the President of the National Endowment for Democracy Carl Gershman, who is to arrive in Vilnius later.

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister and the U.S. experts discussed important security challenges facing Lithuania, measures to ensure security and allied support in this area. The head of Lithuania’s diplomacy and transatlantic policy experts held a discussion on items on the transatlantic agenda and bilateral relations between Lithuania and the United States. The interlocutors stressed the importance of the North Atlantic Alliance, the need to combat terrorism and fight against the Islamic State by all means. They also discussed issues related to cybersecurity, information and economic security, as well as the need to disseminate democracy.

On 12 March, the Seimas held an inter-parliamentary discussion to examine the alarming trends of declines in democracy worldwide, the new challenges and the future of transatlantic cooperation, and will be looking for new ways to ensure solidarity. One session will be dedicated to cooperation between Europe and the U.S. with an aim to consolidate the Western democratic community’s values beyond the borders of the EU and NATO, particularly in the eastern neighbours. The event was attended by the Speaker of the Seimas Viktoras Pranckietis, the Chairman of the Supreme Council-Reconstituent Seimas Vytautas Landsbergis, the Chairmen of Parliamentary Committees on Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia and Moldova, politicians and the high-ranking experts from the U.S. and EU research centres.