NordenBladet —
On Monday, President of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) Jüri Ratas will attend the meeting of the Speakers of the Parliaments of the Baltic States and Poland in Warsaw, where enhancing the parliamentary cooperation between the four countries in the current complicated security situation will be discussed.
According to Ratas, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has cardinally changed the security environment in Europe and therefore close cooperation between the countries of our region is particularly important. “Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have supported Ukraine in every way and have actively worked to put increasing political and economic pressure on Russia, thereby raising the cost of aggression and paving the way for Ukraine’s victory,” he said.
Ratas pointed out that since Russia had not yet lost the war, it was necessary to continue working on the international arena, and it was wise to do this in an effective and even better coordinated cooperation between the countries of the region. He added that it was also necessary to act together to strengthen the security as well as connectivity, energy independence and economic cooperation in the region.
The development of cooperation between countries as well as between parliaments to respond to the current geopolitical threats will be discussed at the meeting of the Speakers of Parliaments on Monday. The opportunities of parliamentary diplomacy to influence strategic issues at the international level will be addressed separately. At the end of the meeting, the Speakers from the four countries plan to adopt a joint declaration.
Besides Ratas, Edvards Smiltēns from the Parliament of Latvia, Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen from the Parliament of Lithuania, and Elżbieta Witek from the Parliament of Poland will attend the meeting in Warsaw.
Source: Parliament of Estonia