Visits

Visit by President Dalia Grybauskaitė to Helsinki, Finland, 10 February 2010

President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė participates in the Baltic Sea Action Summit convened on the initiative of the President of Finland in Helsinki, where heads of states and governments as well as representatives of business and non-governmental organisations from countries around the Baltic Sea have gathered to discuss possible solutions to Baltic Sea environmental problems.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė underlined that if we were to reduce contamination of the Baltic Sea, we must not only improve wastewater treatment, but also clean up the explosives and more actively exchange information about chemical weapons remaining on its ground after World War II.

"The explosives dumped in the Baltic Sea during World War II are still there and continue to pose a real environmental threat. Eventually, they may have a negative impact on current commercial and non-commercial activities in the region. In 1995, a HELCOM working group produced a report which states that there are 40 thousand tons of chemical weapons in the Baltic Sea. However, we lack precise information and a genuine wish to cooperate in deciding what to do next," the President said at the Summit.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė urged to foster cooperation at international level, share information and proposals on a regular basis, and take action without delay to clean the Baltic Sea off explosives. According to the President, it is necessary to expand the scope of current exercises, do more ambitious projects, and make better use of international mechanisms.

The President also stressed the important role that could be played by public and private partnerships in reducing contamination of the Baltic Sea.

The President noted that environmental issues would be high on the agenda of the Summit of the Council of the Baltic Sea States and the Baltic Development Forum to take place in Lithuania this June.

As part of the visit to Helsinki, President Dalia Grybauskaitė also had a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The President and Russia's Prime Minister discussed bilateral relations and prospects for cooperation, and agreed to develop constructive dialogue.

In the meeting, the President stressed the need to ensure that Lithuanian business in Russia is not discriminated on the national basis.

"Russia is an important trade partner for Lithuania, and closer bilateral cooperation would be ensured if equal business conditions and requirements were applied to Lithuanian companies operating in Russia," President Dalia Grybauskaitė said.

The discussion in the meeting also covered cooperation in energy. According to the President, Lithuania is interested in having a more flexible pricing mechanism for Russian gas imports to Lithuania, i.e. a mechanism compliant to gas pricing principles applied with respect to other European users.

The President informed the Russian side on Lithuania's strong commitment to continue the new nuclear power plant construction project in Visaginas, which is expected to ensure energy stability and diversity of power supply for the whole region.

The parties discussed possibilities for faster implementation of bilateral agreements signed so far concerning border demarcation and the lease of Lake Vištytis.

On the issue of environmental problems affecting the Baltic Sea, President Dalia Grybauskaitė suggested that Russia could cooperate with Lithuania in carrying out projects aimed at cleaning up weapons and hazardous chemical substances in the Baltic Sea.

The bilateral meeting between the President of Lithuania and the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation took place on the latter's initiative.