President of Latvia Egils Levits has welcomed the interest in closer Baltic-Nordic co-operation shared by Latvia and Finland when meeting with President of Finland Sauli Niinistö in Helsinki today. “Further regional integration is important for the growth and security of all of us,” stated Egils Levits.
According to the President of Latvia, Latvia also intends to expand its bilateral cooperation with Finland in economics, culture, education, and people-to-people contacts. Egils Levits appreciated the active engagement of Finland in regional infrastructure facilities such as RailBaltica, which could facilitate bilateral and regional cooperation.
During the meeting, the parties paid great attention to the current issues of the European Union (EU), especially considering the status of Finland as the Presidency of the EU Council. “Latvia fully supports the priorities set by Finland of its Presidency of the Council of the European Union. We must stand for our common European values like an efficient and non-discriminatory rule of law. Like Finland, we believe that there is a clear need for an ambitious and rapid response to climate change at both national and EU level,” stressed the President of Latvia.
During the conversation, both parties focused on global environmental issues. Regarding wild fires in the Amazon jungle, Siberia, and Africa, the President of Latvia said that this was a global problem and that countries needed to establish an international mechanism to combat environmental problems and climate change with political will and technical solutions urgently.
Both officials also agreed that the rule of law should be strengthened within the European Union. As Mr Levits acknowledged, the values of the rule of law applied to all EU Member States equally, and all should respect them equally. It is for the Court of Justice of the European Union to decide whether a country is violating the rule of law.
The Presidents of both countries paid special attention to strengthening the information space in Europe. The President of Latvia stressed the importance of continuing the joint efforts of NATO and the European Union to tackle hybrid threats and misinformation and therefore commended the work of the NATO Centre of Excellence for Strategic Communication based in Latvia and the European Centre for Countering Hybrid Threats based in Helsinki, where one representative of Latvia works as well.
During his working visit to Finland, the President of Latvia will also visit the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, and he will meet with the Speaker of the Finnish Parliament Ms Tuula Haatainen and the mass media.
