Baltic parliaments alarmed at Russia's military talk

The three parliamentary delegations discussed Russia's military powers in its Kaliningrad region wedged between Lithuania and Poland at the Nida resort on Sunday.

The committees said the reinforcement had an effect on Russia's ties with the Baltic states, NATO and the European Union (EU). The meeting also addressed energy security of the Baltic states and development of Nordic-Baltic cooperation, the Lithuanian parliament's Public Relations Division said.

According to the press release, the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian parliaments noted the escalating statements by Russia's top political and military leaders about growing military powers was causing bigger preoccupation in the neighboring states.

The committees spoke in support to NATO's openness to cooperation with Russia and great importance of broad NATO-Russia cooperation, also emphasizing the need to take into consideration the lately frequent statements about reinforcement of Russian military capacities when planning content and practical aspects of the NATO-Russia cooperation.

During the session dedicated to Baltic energy security, the Lithuanian delegation presented the projects of liquefied natural gas terminal and the Visaginas Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) that are underway and aimed at ensuring diversification of energy supplies. The participants stressed that economic benefits the projects will have for the three Baltic countries were as important as the political effects.

The Lithuanian delegation also presented the Energy Security Center operating in Vilnius, which, according to the decisions made at the recent NATO summit in Chicago, should be shortly transformed into an accredited NATO center of competences. Lithuania invited the Latvian and Estonian parliaments to take active participation in the activities of the center.

In the discussion of development of Nordic-Baltic cooperation, the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian parliamentarians discussed the contacts and cooperation between the Nordic and the Baltic states, at the same time noting the need for the three countries to work hard to eliminate the remaining obstacles for closer Nordic-Baltic cooperation. The delegations listed differences in economic and social development and lack of better understanding and shared identities as the main obstacles.

The three Baltic foreign affairs committees meet in traditional meetings every six months.