Baltic countries and Poland can help strengthen transatlantic ties - Rinkevics

RIGA - The Baltic countries and Poland can help strengthen transatlantic ties, President Edgars Rinkevics said on Thursday at Riga Castle in response to a question about transatlantic unity and comments by U.S. officials regarding Europe's "weakness" or fragmentation.

At a joint press conference with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, Rinkevics emphasized that Europe had long lacked political will and resources to properly develop its defense and security capabilities. Europe started paying significant attention to development of these capabilities after the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and especially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he said.

Europe still has much to do in the fields of defense, economic and technological development, including artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies, said Rinkevics. Today, countries need to be strong enough to be reckoned with, and declarative statements are not enough, he added.

The president of Latvia pointed to U.S. strategic documents, which state that Europe was still important to the United States and that a strong Europe was in the interests of the United States. The task for Latvia and other countries in the region is to ensure that transatlantic ties are strengthened rather than weakened and that the U.S. presence in the region is maintained.

Rinkevics also mentioned the importance of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act for the Baltic countries, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. The Baltic countries and Poland, which allocate resources to defense and cooperate closely with the United States also in the economic sphere, can become a bridge to strengthen transatlantic relations.

The president of Latvia called for distinguishing "noise" from essential signals, stressing that close cooperation was in the interest of both the United States and Europe.

The Polish president said that Eastern and Central European countries bordering Russia did not always fully see eye to eye with the European Union because they had different security priorities.

Nawrocki criticized the EU's hesitation to increase defense budgets and pointed out that Central European countries, including Poland, served as an example of how much of a country's budget could be devoted to defense. The U.S. strategy and policies should not come as a surprise, as U.S. President Donald Trump has always stressed the principle of "America first", said Nawrocki.

The countries of the region are interested in the presence of U.S. troops in Europe, and countries in Central and Eastern Europe do not have time to deal with less important issues because security is the priority, said Nawrocki.