7 May 2009 Press Release to VIR

 

Speaker of the Seimas, Arūnas Valinskas, welcomed their Majesties King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia of Spain, who paid an official visit to Lithuania, in Seimas.

 

During the meeting, Speaker of the Seimas revealed to their Majesties the most important moments of restoration of the statehood of independent Lithuania and its history of parliamentarism.

 

Speaker Arūnas Valinskas spoke to their Majesties Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia of the Statutes of Lithuania, its Declaration of Independence on 16 February 1918, the beginning of occupation in 1940, post-war resistance, the beginning of the independence movement Sąjūdis, the Restoration of Independence on 11 March 1990, the events of 13 January 1991 and Lithuania’s entry into NATO and the EU. Speaker of the Seimas noted that the Kingdom of Spain was among the first countries to recognise the restoration of our state’s independence. The Royal Couple, interested in the events taking place during the last century, observed that people of the Baltic States must have felt under an enormous pressure if as many as two million of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians joined their hands to make a live chain, the Baltic Road, on 23 August 1989.

 

On the occasion of the official visit of the Royal Couple of Spain, an exhibition of photographs with historical Lithuanian events was opened in the Speaker’s office.

 

King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia also met with representatives of the main parliamentary political parties, visited the Hall of the 11^th of March and signed in the Book for the Guests of Honour.

 

Press Representative of the Speaker of the Seimas, Indrė Viržintė