News

VILNIUS, May 22, BNS – The declaration of the NATO Chicago Summit underlines the importance of energy security and also includes support for the Energy Security Center in Lithuania.

"We welcome the offer to establish a NATO-accredited Energy Security Centre of Excellence in Lithuania as a contribution to NATO’s efforts in this area," the document reads.

Lithuanian Minister of National Defense Rasa Jukneviciene, who attended the meeting, said such an approval would be a push for those ensuring that the Vilnius-based center got a NATO accreditation.

"With no doubt, I believe that it's a sign, a signal for those who will carry out the establishment procedures. We know that we have to meet the requirements for a NATO energy security center, but we are doing everything we need, and I think that there should be no major problems," Jukneviciene told BNS on Monday.

"It's very important for me that it was mentioned as the incumbent government was the one who started processes which in general correspond to the NATO's attitude to security. (…) We have promoted this idea since 2008, and now after four years we have the NATO's full approval. It's a breaking-point, and frankly I did not expect it to be so specifically mentioned," the Lithuanian defense minister said.

Accompanying Jukneviciene, Vaidotas Urbelis, political director at the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defense, said the NATO leaders' approval that the Vilnius-based Energy Security Center should receive the status of a NATO center of excellence, showed the NATO's changing attitude to the influence of energy on security.

Urbelis underlined that the fact that the Energy Security Center was mentioned in the meeting's main document was "a very significant achievement."

"It's an indication by all NATO member countries that the center idea and in general the importance of energy security in the NATO policy are recognized by all member countries. i.e., they all understand that energy issues are in part becoming NATO issues and are emerging on the NATO agenda. If some two or three years ago energy security was rarely mentioned, there were several states, only Lithuania and Poland which considered this issue important, so now leaders of even maybe seven states underlined that energy security is becoming one of the key security issues," the representative of the Ministry of National Defense said.

According to Urbelis, now it's very important for Lithuania to do good homework so that the Energy Security Center received a NATO accreditation.

"If everything goes well, the plan is that the Center will receive a NATO accreditation of a center of excellence early next year. We are talking about this December or next January. There are a lot of technical requirements the center has to meet, legal and financial issues should be dealt with by the state. The leaders' declaration says that it's political approval, and really when state leaders mentioned the center itself in their declaration, not to build and invest would be loosing face," Urbelis said.

According to the draft concept, following NATO accreditation, the Vilnius-based center would provide expertise on the development of NATO capacities in the field of energy security, analyze aspects of energy supplies and infrastructure protection, provide advice on improvement of energy efficiency. The center would also carry out exercise and training.