Dear People of Lithuania! Your Excellencies, President Dalia Grybauskaitė, Valdas Adamkus, Vytautas Landsbergis! Mr. Speaker and Distinguished Members of the Seimas! Dear Guests!

The Seimas adopted the Law on European political parties and European political foundations and the amendments to the Law on the Central Electoral Commission (drafts No XII-4481(3) and No XIIP-3241(2)), which will allow the registration of European political parties and European political foundations in Lithuania. As many as 86 Members of the Seimas voted in favour of the framework law act and 4 parliamentarians abstained.

The annual session of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) held in Luxembourg on 3–8 July 2019 turned out to be highly productive for the Lithuanian delegation. The session adopted a resolution on energy security in the OSCE region presented by Rūta Miliūtė, Member of the Seimas. In addition, thanks to its enormous and pooled efforts, the delegation managed to achieve another significant victory in countering Russia’s attempt to rewrite and monopolise the history of World War II and to discredit the statehood of the countries once affected by the Soviet occupation. The resolution under a politically correct title Combating xenophobia, aggressive nationalism and intolerance was clearly politically motivated and was directed against the Baltic and other countries, who call into question the role of the USSR in World War II in general, and its occupation policy, in particular.

“We welcome the decision of the United States of America to increase the number of U.S. troops in Poland — this step is of extraordinary importance in strengthening deterrence in our region. However, we have to keep working on solving the issues of air defence and rapid deployment of allied forces into the Baltic region side by side with the U.S. and the Alliance,” Minister of National Defence Raimundas Karoblis said today in Gdansk, Poland, at a meeting with the Helsinki Commission of the U.S. Congress. The U.S. Government agency analyses issues of strengthening security and provides recommendations on the matter, as well as works on strengthening the security and defence cooperation of the U.S. and European countries.

The newly-elected MEPs met for their first plenary session on 2-4 July, during which they elected a new president and voted on the size of the parliamentary committees.

Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis has met with outgoing Latvian Ambassador Einars Semanis to thank him for his personal contribution to the development of the bilateral fraternal relations in the political, economic and cultural fields.

On Wednesday, all 14 European Parliament Vice-Presidents were elected in three rounds of voting for a two-and-a-half year term.

MEPs elected David Sassoli as President of the European Parliament on Wednesday afternoon, having won 345 out of 667 valid votes in the second round.

As the new European Parliament meets for the first time 2 July, MEPs have formed seven political groups.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė and President Andrzej Duda of Poland issued a joint statement to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the Union of Lublin.