Today, President of Latvia met with H. E. Mr Nikos Christodoulides, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cyprus Foreign, in the Riga Castle to discuss current bilateral relations between Latvia and Cyprus and cooperation within the European Union (EU).
President of Latvia and Foreign Minister of Cyprus both agreed that common denominators between Latvia and Cyprus include cooperation within the EU and similar opinion on current tasks of the European Union shared by smaller countries.
Egils Levits underlined that it is important for Latvia and Cyprus to maintain a close dialogue, deepen bilateral cooperation and keep working on shared vision for closer cooperation between the EU member states in healthcare. President of Latvia and Foreign Minister of Cyprus also discussed how to enhance the freedom of speech in the age of information, especially on the social media. Fight against deliberate misinformation was another topic discussed during the meeting. Such misinformation may be extremely detrimental to the public. Nikos Christodoulides pointed out that Cyprus values the bilateral political and trade relations between Latvia and Cyprus, and previous visit of the Cyprus foreign minister in 1997 is a vivid proof of that. According to Minister, one of the areas in which countries should step up their cooperation is tourism. Cyprus has decided to reopen its borders for tourists who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 from 10 June.
EU Eastern Partnership initiative was another topic discussed by the President and Foreign Minister. Both sides expressed their views about practical steps in the delivery of this programme. President of Latvia also mentioned the Future of Europe conference. Series of conferences, which will kick off on 9 May, seek to find out EU citizens’ opinion on how issues crucial for the future of EU should be handled.
Egils Levits also asked Nikos Christodoulides to comment the political situation in Cyprus and near its borders.