Lithuanian president to join EU leaders in Brussels for defense meeting

  • 2025-02-03
  • BNS/TBT Staff

VILNIUS - Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda is set to join other EU leaders for an informal meeting in Brussels on Monday.

Nauseda's office said the main focus of the meeting will be strengthening the EU's defense.

Leaders will also discuss closer EU cooperation with NATO and the United Kingdom on security and defense.

The meeting follows US President Donald Trump's return to the White House.

Trump has raised concerns with remarks suggesting he does not rule out using economic or military measures to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.

He has also threatened not to defend NATO members that fail to meet the Alliance's defense spending targets. Some European countries have indicated that spending five percent of GDP would be an economic burden. However, countries on NATO's eastern flank, including Lithuania, consider such a goal a necessity.

Ahead of his late-January inauguration, Trump vowed to end the war in Ukraine immediately after taking office. Some European nations feared he might cut off US military aid to Ukraine. However, after his inauguration, Trump threatened sanctions and tariffs against Moscow and urged Vladimir Putin to stop the war.

Security concerns in the region have also been fueled by a series of incidents involving damage to underwater cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea. Since October 2023, at least 11 submarine cables in the region have been damaged.

In the latest incident, a fiber-optic cable connecting Latvia and Sweden's Gotland Island was damaged in late January.

In response to these incidents, NATO launched a new surveillance mission, dubbed Baltic Sentry, in the Baltic Sea in January to prevent attacks on underwater infrastructure in the region.