Lithuanian president expects parties to sign foreign policy agreement in autumn

VILNIUS – Lithuania's political parties have a broad consensus on the main foreign policy principles and could sign a formal agreement on that in the autumn, President Gitanas Nauseda said on Thursday. 

Nauseda, who was speaking after a meeting with Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte and leaders of parliamentary political parties, said that its participants stated that the principles of foreign policy, formed over the last 30 years, "are unchanging and based on values".

"As far as the Belarusian regime is concerned, the assessments are basically unchanged," the president said. "Perhaps there were some differences of opinion on what tactics we should use and how to solve the problem of migration through diplomatic and political means."  

"However, the key issues, foreign policy directions have been quite clearly named, and I believe this provides an excellent basis for extending the 2014-2020 agreement among political parties on foreign policy and extrapolating it to the future, and we could do so as soon as this autumn," he said. 

Political parties' leaders seem to agree broadly on how Lithuania should solve migration problems, according to Nauseda. 

"I heard the words 'we agree' and 'unanimously' many times around the table today, which gives hope that we will be able to overcome this really difficult problem," he said.