Honourable President of the Republic of Lithuania,

Honourable Speaker of the Seimas,

Dear colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Please allow me first to express my delight and congratulate Lithuania on the assumption of such a dignified and responsible position, the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, and to wish you energy, strength and success for the coming six months.

Lithuania is not the first neighbouring country of Estonia who assumes this demanding position. More than once, the Presidency has been successfully held by our northern neighbours Finland and Sweden. But for Estonia, the Presidency of Lithuania is in many ways more special. Together with Lithuania and Latvia, a quarter of a century ago Estonia started to return from the soviet regime to the principles of democracy and the European values. Together, encouraging and helping one another, and also with the support of our friends, we continued on the way we had been stopped from going by a criminal deal between Nazis and Soviet communists in 1939. Estonia can be proud of the achievements of its fellow travellers during the last decades. We have been able to be glad about Lithuania’s success.

When I earlier spoke of Lithuania as the neighbouring country of Estonia, maybe some of those who heard this raised a quizzical eyebrow. That geographically it is not really so. Estonia and Lithuania do not have common land or sea border. This is the way things are on the map. But I think that this is the case when heart triumphs over pure geography. The emotional ties of the people of Estonia and Lithuania are so strong that it is natural and self-evident for them to consider each other a good neighbour. Thinking differently would seem strange.

Partnership in the European Union has given new forms and additional strength to the cooperation of the Baltic States. Our joint activities in the Baltic Assembly must also become more diversified through it. During its first years of existence, the Baltic Assembly was a powerful and irreplaceable assembly that helped to make the expression of the will of our nations more visible across the borders. Today the Baltic Assembly is a great forum for exchanging opinions, discussions and coordinating our positions. But all international models of cooperation need to be freshened up from time to time in order to meet the new challenges and requirements better, and the Baltic Assembly, too, is in need of a new breath. The committees of national parliaments and their decisive role should be involved more forcefully in the Assembly. I am convinced that the delegations of our countries to the Baltic Assembly will in the coming years successfully carry out the reforms that lead to more practical forms of cooperation.

However, at the international level an important indicator of the Baltic cooperation is our ability to continue the activities that are important to the whole Europe through our presidencies. The almost successive presidencies of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia form a kind of chain through which we can carry on important and meaningful projects, and keep them fresh. Here the efforts of three of us are not enough – we need the unity of the whole Europe. The priorities Lithuania has outlined for its Presidency – financial stability, economic growth and competitiveness of the European Union, energy security, Eastern Partnership programme, joint development of research and innovation, and progress with the Baltic Sea strategy – are of vital importance to the Union and have to be dealt with here and now. And these are the problems that have to be addressed also in several years to come. These issues will certainly be on the agenda of Estonia’s Presidency during the first half of 2018. It is important to deal with them purposefully, consistently and continuously.

The European Union needs and deserves more integration. Without having to look any further an example from one sphere – the energy and transport connections with the other EU countries, of the latter let us mention here Rail Baltic, are still leaving the Baltic States into periphery. Certainly the solving of these problems is not only an ambition of local dimension. It is an issue of the security and functioning of the whole European Union. And by the way, an extremely important signal to the candidate states of the EU and the Eastern Partnership countries.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Robert Schuman, one of the founders of the European Union, said in his famous speech on 9 May 1950:

"Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity."

These words are topical also today, more than sixty years later. The process of creating a de facto solidarity is still going on. Like creating a real single market in the EU – keeping in mind first of all the services, but also research and development. And also many other things.

I wish you success, dear Lithuanian neighbours. Success and strength to us all!