Seimas takes initiative on inviting Ukraine to join the Alliance

Press release, 19 September 2023

In the resolution adopted on Tuesday, the Seimas declared that it already welcomes the invitation of Ukraine to join the Alliance as a country meeting the criteria of NATO membership and does not impose any conditions of the day.

Additionally, the Seimas will call on the parliaments of the NATO member countries to support Ukraine’s official application to join NATO and to encourage the governments of the NATO member countries to support the decision to invite Ukraine to join NATO at the NATO Summit in Washington on 9-10 July 2024 to be followed by the immediate opening of negotiations on Ukraine’s membership of the Alliance.

Žygimantas Pavilionis, Chair of the Seimas Committee on Foreign Affairs, who proposed the Resolution, said that as regards Ukraine’s situation, after the NATO Summit in Vilnius, it was generally accepted that the progress made during the Summit fell short of our expectations. ‘What has not been achieved in Vilnius, we expect to achieve during the following ten months until the Washington Summit in July,’ the Chair of the Committee said. According to Mr Pavilionis, we are the voice of Ukraine in NATO and we will be defending Ukraine’s interests until its ambassadors sit at the NATO table.

The Resolution underlines that inviting Ukraine to become a NATO member will clearly confirm that Russia has no veto over NATO enlargement and cannot create grey security areas in Europe.

‘We certainly cannot lose Ukraine on this path. Let us not forget that Russia’s right to veto and this grey area have been in place virtually since the NATO Summit in Bucharest. For years, we have been hoping to rectify it in Vilnius and now we are hoping to rectify it in Washington DC, the capital of democracy,’ Mr Pavilionis said at the Seimas sitting.

The Resolution points out that Ukraine’s preparedness for membership of NATO under Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty is demonstrated by Ukraine’s defence of the basic principles of the North Atlantic Treaty and the credibility of its armed forces in combating the main NATO threat, and that Ukraine’s preparedness is already ahead of the individual preparedness of some of the current NATO member countries.

The Seimas Resolution on Inviting Ukraine to Join NATO was adopted unanimously by 122 votes in favour.

On 30 September 2022, Ukraine submitted its official application to join NATO.

Rimas Rudaitis, Adviser of the Press Office of the Information and Communication Department,

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