Lithuania starts its Presidency of the Baltic Assembly

On 1 January 2015, Lithuania took over the Presidency of the Baltic Assembly. This year, the Seimas plans to hold 14 international events, with the majority of them hosted by the Seimas in Vilnius and four of them held in Kaunas, Klaipėda, Palanga and Šiauliai.

Giedrė Purvaneckienė, Head of the Seimas Delegation to the Baltic Assembly and President of the Baltic Assembly, says that the year 2014 presented a lot of new challenges for the parliamentary cooperation of the countries in the Baltic Sea Region. Mrs Purvaneckienė wishes that the initiatives and activities of the Baltic Assembly would help to address complicated international problems and improve the geopolitical situation in the region.

The Lithuanian Presidency adopted the slogan For a Growing and United Baltic Region and set the following priorities: developing a growing and credible Baltic Region; secure Baltic Region; a sustainable and competitive society in the Region; and the Baltic Region in the world: development of regional networks.

On Tuesday, 20 January 2015, a press conference will be held to present the Lithuanian Presidency of the Baltic Assembly. The participants of the press conference will include Giedrė Purvaneckienė, Head of the Seimas Delegation to the Baltic Assembly, and Linas Linkevičius, Minister of Foreign Affairs. The press conference will be web-streamed and broadcast live on the TV programme Seimas – tiesiogiai (Engl. Seimas – live).  The press conference will be interpreted into English.       

A special website will also be launched on 20 January 2015 (BA2015.lrs.lt) which will feature detailed information in Lithuanian and in English on the events of the Baltic Assembly, including programmes, lists of participants, various documents, press releases, photos and video recordings.

The Baltic Assembly is an international organisation for cooperation among the parliaments of the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Estonia, and the Republic of Latvia, established on 8 November 1991 in Tallinn.  The headquarters of its Secretariat is based in Riga, Latvia (http://baltasam.org/en/).

The term of presidency of the Baltic Assembly is one calendar year and the presidency is held alternately by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Jolanta Anskaitienė, Public Relations Unit, Communications Department, tel. +370 5 239 6508, e-mail: [email protected]