Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Jeppe Kofod is foreign minister of Denmark. Stef Blok is foreign minister of the Netherlands. Tomáš Petříček is foreign minister of the Czech Republic. The European Union has the tools to act decisively on the world stage. But it must step up and use them. As cracks appear in the pillars holding up our rules-based order, it’s becoming increasingly urgent that Europe gets its foreign policy act together. Arms control and non-proliferation…
A long-term budget proposal by Finland, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, may significantly reduce support for Lithuania and is even more unfavorable than the previous plan from the European Commission, the Delfi.lt online news site reported on Thursday. “All our sores and problems remain,” it quoted Darius Trakelis, director of the EU and International Affairs Department at the Finance Ministry, as saying. “Under the Commission’s proposal, we would have…
BALTICS LEAVE NATO SUMMIT UNSCATHED The NATO summit in London, it seems, narrowly avoided a car-crash with Turkey saying it will endorse an updated defence plan for the Baltic states and Poland. Leaders succeed in defending NATO’s Article 5 “hanging like a toy on a Christmas tree,” according to Nausėda The Lithuanian president seemed overjoyed with the achievement, as seen in a video excerpt (below) posted by LRT.lt…
EU’s newly sworn-in foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said in an interview with the Spanish daily El Pais that Russia is “a very divisive” issue among the member states. According to the High Representative of the Union, the de facto EU foreign minister, “some countries are very reluctant to embark on a normalisation of relations with Russia and others would like to do so”. His words came on the heels…
Lithuania’s Ministry of Agriculture distributed 40 million euros of EU funds to support rural tourism between 2007 and 2013, but some of the money went to well-connected businessmen seeking to upgrade their private residences, LRT Investigation Team has found. LRT looked into a number of cases where EU-funded rural tourism establishments do not seem to offer any services. While abuse is a risk, the ministry, lobbied by a business association,…
Lithuanian and Ukrainian President Gitanas Nauseda and Volodymyr Zelensky are set to discuss Ukraine’s relations with the European NATP and NATO and the upcoming talks on peace in the east of the country in Vilnius on Wednesday. The two leaders will also touch upon bilateral relations, security matters and the ongoing reforms in Ukraine. “Our goal is to hear from President Zelensky what his further course will be,” Asta Skaisgiryte,…
Talks among EU bodies on tighter rules for truck drivers, an initiative pushed by MEPs but fiercely opposed by Lithuanian hauler companies, ended without agreement early on Tuesday. Representatives of Finland, which is holding the EU’s rotating presidency in the second half of this year, the European Commission and the European Parliament met in Strasbourg to discuss the so-called Mobility Package. “Tonight we had long negotiations with the European Parliament…
A delegation of the national defense committee of the Estonian parliament will visit Estonia’s representations to the European Union and NATO in Brussels and NATO Supreme Headquarters in Mons during its three-day visit to Belgium. Chairman of the national defense committee Andres Metsoja said that the purpose of the visit to Brussels was to get an overview of the developments in NATO and the European Union. “Developing of allied relations…
The free trade agreement between the European Union and Singapore, which entered into force last week, will strengthen trade between the Union and Singapore and also open up new opportunities to Estonian entrepreneurs, farmers, workers and consumers, MEP Urmas Paet said. “The agreement will serve as a gateway for Europe to Southeast Asia as a whole,” Paet, member of the committee on international trade of the European Parliament, said. Paet…
On November 19–20 Minister of National Defence Raimundas Karoblis and Defence Policy Director Robertas Šapronas are taking part in the Nordic-Baltic (NB8) and Northern Group Defence Ministers meeting in Stockholm (Sweden). The Ministers discussed the security situation in the North and the Baltic Sea regions, Nordic-Baltic Cooperation, and strengthening the regional cooperation between NATO and NATO partners. Minister R. Karoblis spoke on the regional security situation, presented proposals on the…
