Addressing the leaders of the European Council, Germany, Greece, Belgium, Cyprus, Austria, and Hungary, the President stressed that support for Ukraine should remain a priority for the EU, as its victory is the only sustainable path to peace and stability in Europe.
“In a complex geopolitical situation, the European Union can and must become an even stronger and more influential actor of international politics. Our mission to preserve the rules-based international order is more important than ever,” Gitanas Nausėda said in his address to the European leaders.
The Head of State underscored that the EU needs to boost its resilience, economic security and competitiveness, and to speed up investments in the development of the defense and security industry, the deployment of new technologies and the infrastructure needed for military mobility.
“The single market is the economic backbone of the EU. In order to increase the EU’s competitiveness, we need to put special emphasis on both removing the barriers that still exist in the EU internal market, especially in the services sector, and increasing access to finance for our companies, as well as on strengthening our international partnerships,” said the President.
The Lithuanian leader stressed that the European Commission’s recommendation to open negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova on EU membership and to grant the status of EU candidate country to Georgia is an important step paving the way for future European Council decisions on EU enlargement.
“EU enlargement is an opportunity to unite and strengthen the continent—a successful new phase of EU enlargement would lead to the biggest growth of the internal market since 2004,” said the President. The Lithuanian Head of State stressed that decisions on EU enlargement should not become hostage to institutional issues.
“Given the geopolitical importance of the EU enlargement process, we need to take decisions on EU enlargement first, and then talk about institutional reforms,” Gitanas Nausėda emphasized.
In his address to European leaders, the President also underlined the growing need to protect the EU’s borders.
“We see that the process of irregular migration can easily be instrumentalized and used as a weapon against EU countries to destabilize the situation. We must prevent this by creating uniform standards for the protection of the EU’s external borders and by increasing the financial resources for the fight against irregular migration and border protection,” President Gitanas Nausėda added.
The Berlin meeting of European heads of state is one in a series of roundtable discussions where EU leaders are preparing for decisions on priorities for the new political cycle, to be discussed at the European Council in spring 2024.
