Good afternoon,
Today, shortly before Christmas, I had the pleasure of hosting a meeting with my Baltic colleagues, President of Estonia, H. E. Mrs Kersti Kaljulaid, and President of Lithuania, H. E. Mr Gitanas Nausėda, in Riga.
I am pleased with the constructive and dynamic discussion on a broad range of issues we had today. Our meeting demonstrated the unity between us, between all three Baltic countries. Unity that has been going strong for the past 30 years since we regained our freedom. It showed that our unity is real. Rooted in common interests and shared worldview. It has not fallen apart as quickly as some other coalitions. Our unity is real and sustainable. I believe we are one of the most united regions of Europe. There are others too, but Baltics is one of the strongest regions in terms of transnational cooperation.
During today’s meeting, our countries reaffirmed their strong commitment to promote the implementation of Rail Baltica project and overcome difficulties that have arisen in some areas. But we have strong shared political will to ensure that the project is implemented and finished on time. It is actually the duty of cabinets, governments, engineers and other experts to make sure it is completed on time. We, the heads of state, are there to clearly remind them of that.
We talked about energy sector projects – electricity grid synchronisation and integrated gas market and touched upon the Astravets nuclear power plant. All the Baltic countries have similar position on these issues. There are slight differences in each country’s approach, but we share the same overall vision. We discussed the envisaged completion of synchronisation process by 2025 and agreed that all countries would like to see it being finished earlier. We will do whatever we can to achieve that. It is not a clear or specific promise. It is a commitment to do our best to make transition as short as possible. Regional gas market will be put into operation in 2020. It is a European Union (EU) success story of the regional cooperation in Europe.
We discussed NATO and EU agenda. My Lithuanian colleague, Mr Nausėda, and I recently attended the Meeting of NATO heads of state in London – Estonia was represented by Prime Minister Jüri Ratas. We jointly concluded today that despite earlier concerns about the support for defence plan for the Baltics, leaders meeting was very successful. These concerns have been cleared at the political level and that has been positive for NATO.
We also talked about strengthening the European pillar of NATO. We have heard various suggestions and now have to agree on the most rational and efficient ways of delivering that through, for example, redistribution of funding. It goes without saying that all three Baltic countries are committed to ensuring that at least 2% of GDP is spent on defence. We are among the leading NATO countries in this respect and strongly hope that more and more NATO member states will comply with common NATO defence spending standard in future.
Let me conclude by underlining that Baltic countries will continue to engage in close economic, political and defence cooperation next year and wish my Estonian colleague, President Kaljulaid, all the success during the presidency of the Baltic Council of Ministers next year. Good luck!
Thank you!
