News

On 12 December in Vilnius, during the international forum “The Baltic Sea Region: Challenges and Possibilities”, State Secretary of Foreign Ministry of Lithuania Deividas Matulionis noted the significance of energy infrastructure development, regional cooperation and strengthening of people-to-people relations in the Baltic Sea region. The forum was organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania and Foreign Policy Research Centre.

State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs mentioned that Lithuania would also seek to achieve those goals during its Presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) from 1 July 2009 to 30 June 2010.

Scientists and researchers from the Nordic countries and Baltic States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Russia and Germany, as well as specialists of foreign policy planning and diplomats of these countries took part in the conference.

The main topics of the forum included the development of the Baltic Sea states, mutual cooperation, integration of the states of the region, multilateral and bilateral cooperation in various areas and challenges.

Members of the academic community interested in the issues of the Baltic Sea region, namely Prof. Dr Bernd Henningsen (Germany), Dr Pertti Joenniemi (Denmark), Dr Marko Lehti (Finland), Dr Kazimierz Musiał (Poland), Dr Toms Rostoks (Latvia), and Dr Leonid Karabeshkin (Russia), also gave speeches at the forum.

During this academic discussion Prof. Dr Raimundas Lopata and Dr Mindaugas Jurkynas from The Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University and Dr Arūnas Molis from the Baltic Defence College represented Lithuania. Ideas that were expressed during the forum were generalised by Dr Tomas Janeliūnas (IIRPS, VU), who also delineated guidelines for future tasks.

This international forum is a part of series of annual conference of intellectuals.