Gitanas Nausėda thanked the head of the OECD for his personal involvement in guiding Ukraine’s integration into this organization.
“Supporting Ukraine in its reform efforts, which would help the country to implement OECD standards more quickly, is of great importance today, both as a moral support for the country at war and as a strong political signal to the aggressor that we are united and that we see Ukraine as an integral part of the democratic world,” said the President. Gitanas Nausėda called for an early start of the process of negotiations on Ukraine’s membership in the OECD and for the preparation of admission criteria—an action plan—following the October 2022 decision of the OECD Council to recognize Ukraine as a prospective Member country and to hold an initial accession dialogue.
The President underlined the important role of the OECD in establishing a coordination mechanism for international donors to Ukraine. “The opening of the OECD Office for Ukraine last year, co-funded by Lithuania and Poland, is an important step in this regard. We hope that in the near future the Office will move its operations from Paris to Kyiv,” President Gitanas Nausėda underlined.
In his meeting with the WTO Director-General, the President brought up the issue of the looming global food crisis and stressed that Russia, which is waging war against Ukraine, bears full responsibility for the situation.
“Russia’s claims that food shortages on world markets could be the result of sanctions against it are lies. EU sanctions do not affect Russia’s agricultural exports. It is Russian warships that are keeping Ukraine from exporting its crops,” the Lithuanian leader pointed out.
Gitanas Nausėda emphasized the importance of respecting the international rules against unlawful economic pressure and spoke in favor of strengthening the WTO’s functions in ensuring the order of world trade.
“A rules-based world trade system will only work if all WTO members abide by them and resolve their differences through cooperation. Economic pressure on another country is the worst example of the use of economic power,” President Gitanas Nausėda added.
