During the meeting, the President thanked Mette Frederiksen for Denmark’s significant contribution to the security of the Baltic region and its readiness to do even more. The Danish Air Force has just completed the air policing mission in Lithuania, and the Danish Prime Minister announced a few days ago that Denmark was planning to send an additional 800 troops to the Baltic countries.
“We must further strengthen NATO’s eastern flank, placing a special focus on air defense. The defense budgets of the European NATO members must increase in order for us to be ready to counter any threat,” the President said.
The Lithuanian leader also emphasized that the EU and the Western world as a whole had to continue to support Ukraine’s struggle for freedom and sovereignty through military, political and humanitarian means.
Gitanas Nausėda noted that, in line with the decisions of the European Council, we had to immediately start taking concrete steps towards Ukraine’s EU membership: first of all, the European Commission must draw up an opinion on granting EU candidate status to Ukraine and submit it to the EU Council for consideration as soon as possible.
The President and the Danish Prime Minister discussed further EU sanctions against Russia. The Lithuanian leader stressed that Russia and Belarus had to be held accountable for the brutal war crimes committed by their regimes and feel the consequences of their actions. Gitanas Nausėda reiterated that Europe had to stop buying Russian gas and oil, because Kremlin was using this money paid by Europe to finance the ruthless destruction of Ukrainian cities and attacks on peaceful civilians. According to the President, Russia’s ‘gas blackmail’ against the European Union is also a unique opportunity for Europe to become independent from Russian energy imports and to strengthen its energy security.
