Today, President of Latvia Egils Levits hosted David Maria Sassoli, President of the European Parliament (EP), at the Riga Castle. Meeting focused on European Union’s (EU) efforts to prevent hybrid warfare on EU-Belarus border, Conference on the Future of Europe and EU’s global competitiveness. President of Latvia warmly thanked the President of EP for visiting Latvia for the first time and his efforts to promote issues important for Latvia and other EU member states.
Security of the Latvian and Baltic borders is a common concern for all European Union, stressed President Sassoli. ‘FRONTEX should provide additional personnel and technical assets for securing the border along the Baltic countries. Security of the Baltic border is an EU-level issue,’ said the President of the EP. President Levits described current situation on Latvia-Belarus border as a contemporary hybrid warfare: ‘We must be ready to defend European democracy and our borders: we must prevent any attempts to abuse international migration rules.’
On various current priorities of the EU, both officials agreed that more joint EU policies are needed. For example, pandemic has shown that EU needs common health policy. EU should also continue to focus on free trade agreements with other regions of the world, enforcement of the rule of law in the EU, and other areas. As regards to strengthening the awareness about the rule of law across the EU, Egils Levits called for harmonised application of fundamental principles of the rule of law towards all member states and their residents.
President Levits and President Sassoli highlighted the immense importance of Conference on the Future of Europe in ensuring that European citizens are being heard and member states are more aware of how their population views EU future.