On 5-6 March in Riga, the Saeima will hold a conference on foreign policy which will gather nearly 300 parliamentarians from EU member states, high officials from the EU and NATO, as well as international foreign policy experts. The Interparliamentary Conference for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Common Security and Defence Policy will be one of the six interparliamentary events organised by the Saeima within the framework of the parliamentary dimension of the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the EU.
The Conference will be opened by Ināra Mūrniece, Speaker of the Saeima; Ojārs Ēriks Kalniņš, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Saeima; and Elmar Brok, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.
“Currently, the European Union is facing terrorism threats within and next to its borders. The world is alarmed by the aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, activities of the ISIL terrorist group, or the so-called Islamic State, in Iraq and Syria, as well as an increased influx of refugees. Therefore, this high-level Conference will focus on the response of the EU and NATO in light of these circumstances, as well as seek better ways of cooperating in dealing with the new challenges to security,” emphasised Ojārs Ēriks Kalniņš.
Ainars Latkovskis, Chairman of the Defence, Internal Affairs and Corruption Prevention Committee of the Saeima, stated before the upcoming Conference: “One of the most complicated threats to security currently faced by the EU and NATO is a hybrid war, or covert aggression; therefore, a special workshop will be devoted to this subject. We will try to find answers to several questions, such as: Are we and our partners prepared to identify such threats and respond appropriately?”
The first session of the Conference will be devoted to the state of play of the European Neighbourhood Policy. The participants will be addressed by Edgars Rinkēvičs, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia; Carl Bildt, former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden and one of the initiators and promoters of the Eastern Partnership; as well as Fathallah Sijilmassi, Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean.
The second session will focus on the European Common Defence and Security Policy and NATO – better cooperation in view of the new security challenges. During this session the audience will be addressed by Raimonds Vējonis, Minister for Defence of the Republic of Latvia; Alexander Vershbow, Deputy Secretary General of NATO; and Maciej Popowski, Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service.
The third session of the Conference will be held on Friday, 6 March. It will be devoted to the priorities and tasks of the European Foreign and Security Policy. The key speaker at this session will be Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
On the second day of the Conference, work will proceed in four parallel workshops. The first workshop devoted to discussing the path towards the Riga Summit and redefining the Eastern Partnership will be moderated by Lolita Čigāne, Chairperson of the European Affairs Committee of the Saeima. The rapporteur at this workshop will be Petras Auštrevičius, Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, and the speakers will include Juris Poikāns, Ambassador-at-Large for the Eastern Partnership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia; Kadri Liik, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations; Eka Tkeshelashvili, President of the Georgian Institute for Strategic Studies; and Andris Sprūds, Director of the Latvian Institute of International Affairs.
The second workshop will address the European response to the rising instability and threats in the southern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Atis Lejiņš, Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Saeima, as well as founder and former Director of the Latvian Institute of International Affairs, will moderate the discussions. The rapporteur for this workshop will be Francis Zammit Dimech, Member of the Foreign and European Affairs Committee of the Parliament of Malta. The list of speakers will contain Guy-Michel Chauveau, Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly; Pier Antonio Panzeri, Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament and Chair of the Delegation for relations with the Maghreb countries and the Arab Maghreb Union; Christian Berger, Director for North Africa, Middle East, Arabian Peninsula, Iran and Iraq of the European External Action Service; as well as Florence Gaub, Senior Analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies.
The third workshop will focus on hybrid war as a new security challenge for Europe. This workshop will be moderated by Rihards Kols, Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Saeima, while the rapporteur will be Raimonds Bergmanis, Deputy Chairman of the Defence, Internal Affairs and Corruption Prevention Committee of the Saeima. The speakers for this workshop will include Jānis Kārkliņš, Director of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence; Rear Admiral Waldemar Głuszko, Deputy Director General of the EU Military Staff of the European External Action Service; James Sherr, Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme of the Royal Institute of International Affairs – Chatham House; Oleksiy Melnyk, Co-Director of the Foreign Relations and International Security Programmes at the Razumkov Centre; as well as Andis Kudors, Executive Director of the Centre for East European Policy Studies.
The fourth workshop, which will be devoted to challenges and solutions for deployment of EU Battlegroups within the existing legal framework, will be moderated by Michael Gahler, Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Subcommittee on Security and Defence of the European Parliament. The rapporteur for this workshop will be Nicola Latorre, Chairman of the Committee for Defence of the Italian Senate. This workshop will be addressed by Frank E. van Kappen, Chairman of the Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs, Defence and Development Cooperation of the Senate of the Dutch Parliament; Veiko Spolītis, Member of the Defence, Internal Affairs and Corruption Prevention Committee of the Saeima; Lieutenant General Ton van Loon, Retired Lieutenant General of the Royal Netherlands Army; as well as Nora Vanaga, Researcher at the Centre for Security and Strategic Research of the National Defence Academy of Latvia.
The Conference will conclude with a presentation of workshop results and adoption of conclusions; the closing remarks will be given by Ojārs Ēriks Kalniņš and Elmar Brok.
During the break at 14:00 on the first day of the Conference, the traditional family photo will be taken.
A live stream of the meeting will be available at the website of the Parliamentary Dimension of Latvian Presidency at www.parleu2015.lv. For the programme of the meeting, please visit http://ej.uz/f58g.
The Conference will be held at the Ķīpsala International Exhibition Centre, Ķīpsalas iela 8. It is scheduled to start at 11:00 and 9:00 on 5 and 6 March, respectively.
Saeima Press Service