Defense Committee chairman calls for Rail Baltica to be included on NATO's priority list

RIGA - The Rail Baltica railway project should be included in the list of NATO's military mobility priorities and, given its importance, a partial financing option should be foreseen for its faster progress, said Raimonds Bergmanis, Chairman of the Saeima Committee on Defense, Internal Affairs and Corruption Prevention, at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (PA) meeting in Brussels.

The Saeima's press service informed LETA the head of the Latvian delegation made the proposal on the basis of the declarations of cooperation between NATO and the European Union in recent years, as well as the Baltic defense plans adopted at the Vilnius Summit.

Bergmanis met with North Atlantic Council members - ambassadors of the member states and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg - at NATO headquarters in Brussels. During the meeting, they discussed preparations for the Washington Summit, with priorities on defense and deterrence, assistance to Ukraine, and closer cooperation with Asia-Pacific partners.

The NATO PA is an inter-parliamentary consultative organization, founded in 1955, bringing together parliamentarians from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries. The PA provides an essential link between NATO and the national parliaments, strengthens political dialogue and promotes public support for Alliance policies.