Raimonds Vējonis
President of Latvia Raimonds Vējonis met with Madam Speaker of the Saeima Ināra Mūrniece, Prime Minister Māris Kučinskis, Minister of Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkēvičs and Chairman of the Saeima Foreign Affairs Committee Ojārs Ēriks Kalniņš on Friday, November 25. The officials discussed the current foreign policy situation that Europe and Latvia faced currently and the tasks that out both the parliament and the government should do on foreign policy.

 

“Currently existing foreign policy challenges require both efficient cooperation among Latvian authorities and a strong and unified position of the European Union,” stressed President of Latvia Raimonds Vējonis during the meeting.

 

The officials also discussed practical opportunities to establish closer contacts with the new US administration and the Congress, including exchange of visits in order to promote active representation of Latvia’s interests in America.

 

The issues related to Brexit and negotiations of the EU's Multi-annual Budget, relations between the European Union and Russia, as well as outcomes and the next steps after the recent Central and Eastern European Countries and China Summit (16 + 1) held in Riga were discussed as well.

 

“We are confident that the decisions made at the NATO Summit in Warsaw this summer on deployment of multinational NATO battalions in the Baltic States and Poland, as well as the decision to earmark 2 percent of GDP for purposes of defence in Latvia in 2018 are a sound basis for security of Latvia,” mentioned Raimonds Vējonis.