EU – Baltic States, Forum, Legislation, Lithuania, Security

Photo: lrp.lt

The last time was ten years ago, immediately after Lithuania's accession to NATO.

In Vilnius, the Allied Chiefs of Defence discussed the implementation of the necessary security and defence measures agreed upon at the recent NATO Summit in Wales.

In her address to the conference, President Dalia Grybauskaite underlined that NATO was and would remain the principal source of transatlantic security. It was therefore necessary to transform as swiftly as possible the decisions taken in Wales into real defence plans and concrete actions.

The Wales Summit endorsed the Readiness Action Plan to increase readiness and deterrence. It was decided to upgrade NATO's defence plans in line with the actual threats and to create command and control elements in the Baltic States in order to facilitate the reception of reinforcements, bolster collective defence and conduct regular allied military exercises in the Baltic region.

Allied leaders also decided to create a very high readiness response force to be deployed at short notice in case of aggression as well as to develop the necessary infrastructure for the pre-positioning of troops and equipment.