"I believe that our joint efforts––to make our countries and organisations more visible in the EU––have been successful this year. Jointly we should continue to strengthen the Baltic–Nordic parliamentary influence at the European Union," said Giedrė Purvaneckienė, President of the Baltic Assembly and Head of the Seimas Delegation to the Baltic Assembly. "Voice of the Baltic Assembly and the Nordic Council on the EU issues has to be louder. We have to pool our resources and to appear as a grouping on the EU level. By pooling our resources, we can form a group of European frontrunners in research, smart technologies and growth."
Calling for the exchange of views on further cooperation, Ms Purvaneckienė said that the Baltic States particularly needed Nordic experience and advice in regard to the integration of refugees.
Although Jānis Vucāns, Vice President of the Baltic Assembly, stated that the Latvian public was not psychologically prepared for accepting the new religious culture coming alongside refugees, Pyry Niemi, Sweden's representative at the Nordic Council, said that migrants, who totalled about 20% in Sweden and were expected to increase in number in the future, contributed to raising the economic level of the country. The participants expressed the opinion that refugee flows should be controlled by joint efforts of all countries and that the Schengen Area as the value of the European Union should be maintained.
Reviewing the year's activities, Höskuldur Þórhallsson, President of the Nordic Council from Iceland, stressed that it was essential to strengthen cooperation and to take the EU's Eastern Partnership initiative further, that the Belarusian issue was one of the aspects of the long-term cooperation between the NC and the BA, and that networking with the EURONEST Parliamentary Assembly should be further developed.
The participants approved the Action Plan for Cooperation between the Nordic Council and the Baltic Assembly in 2016–2017 that listed the main priorities—Open, Represented, Secure, Growing and Credible Region.
