News

On the 19th of November 2012 Lithuanian Embassy in Sweden together with European Commission representation in Stockholm and Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized a round table discussion “Nordic-Baltic cooperation: yesterday, today and the future look”. In his welcoming speech Ambassador of Lithuania Eitvydas Bajarūnas noted that this event was a perfect opportunity to review the progress achieved by Lithuania as the coordinator of the Nordic-Baltic cooperation in 2012 as well as to discuss the main guidelines for the Swedish coordination period in 2013. During the seminar, Pierre Schellekens, Head of the European Commission representation office in Stockholm, reviewed the implementation process of the EU Baltic Sea Region Strategy, emphasizing cooperation in energy, transport and environmental sectors. Nijolė Žambaitė, Ambassador of the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and coordinator of the Nordic-Baltic cooperation, informed about the main Lithuanian results achieved during its coordination period and stressed that the region is becoming more integrated, especially in the economic sector. Mindaugas Jurkynas from the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University noted that despite many similarities between Nordic and Baltic regions, we are still facing some differences as well. Mike Winnerstig from the Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI) reviewed the Nordic-Baltic cooperation in the field of defense, while Fredrike Tamas Hermelin from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented the main goals for the upcoming coordination year of the Nordic-Baltic cooperation from the Swedish perspective.  

It has already been the third Nordic-Baltic cooperation event this year organized by the Lithuanian Embassy in Sweden. On the 16th of October 2012, Lithuanian Embassy organized an informal meeting of  ambassadors from countries of the “Enhanced Partnership in Northern Europe“ (E-PINE), while on the 30th October 2012, FOI together with Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian embassies in Sweden, presented a new FOI study on Baltic States security and defensibility.   

Around sixty representatives from diplomatic corps, Swedish governmental and non-governmental institution participated in the round table discussion which has been supported by the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.