President of NATO Parliamentary Assembly calls Lithuania paragon for whole region

"You have achieved full integration into NATO and the EU. You are contributing actively to international peace support operations. You have built a modern and innovating economy, based on the spirit of competitiveness and individualism, transparency, fairness and European ideals of civil activism," Lamers said.

"Dear friends from Lithuania, I congratulate your country with these spectacular achievements of yours over such a short period of time. You have become a paragon for the whole region. I express my sincere gratitude for all of your efforts in making this part of Europe safer and more stable. Thank you vey much," the president of NATO Parliamentary Assembly read this part of his speech in Lithuanian.

Lamers also said that today Europe is much more united then it was in 1991 when the first Rose-Roth seminar took place but more efforts need to be made in order to achieve democratization in the East.

"We enjoy freedom and liberty, but there are other countries in our neighborhood, there people do not share these privileges. Family means - no one gets left behind or forgotten, it is also in our responsibility to take care that these countries ant their people don't drift away. We need to work hard on integrating them into the circle of friends and family," Lamers said.

Lawmakers from NATO and partner countries gathered in Vilnius on Monday to attend the 80th Rose-Roth Seminar “Eastern Partners: Contemporary Challenges and Future Prospects”, organized by the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and Lithuania's Seimas.

The aim of the seminar is to review economic, public, and political processes in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Moldova, the Seimas' Public Relations Unit said in a statement on Monday.

The Rose-Roth program of co-operation with the parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) was initiated in 1990 by then President of the Assembly Congressman Charlie Rose and Senator Bill Roth.

The original goal of the program was to assist partner countries in Central and Eastern Europe through their challenging transition process to democracy after the fall of the Berlin wall, which involved the implementation of difficult political and economic reforms. Countries in the Balkans and South Caucasus have been included in the program in recent years.

The first Rose-Roth seminar "Security Needs of the Baltic States" was held in Vilnius on 16-19 December 1991.