JURMALA - The speakers of parliament from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania agreed on April 3 during a meeting in Jurmala that the Baltic Assembly, a body established over a decade ago for parliamentary cooperation between the Baltic states, was in need of major reorganization.
Ene Ergma, speaker of Estonia's Parliament, told reporters that the Baltic Assembly had worked very well until recently, and that after the three countries accede to the EU in May the trilateral institution must be reorganized to form "not such a large organization."
Lithuanian Parliamentary Speaker Arturas Paulauskas said that "the three Baltic states have traveled a hard road" to NATO and EU membership.
"I am very happy about the achievements and agree that the Baltic Assembly is in need of reform, and we are ready for this," he added.
Ingrida Udre, speaker of Latvia's Parliament, said that the nature of cooperation between the three Baltic states would change once they all joined the EU and that the common goals for these countries would evolve as well.
Udre also stated that within international organizations, such as the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Baltic representatives should cooperate more and support the solution of one another's national issues.
She said that such Baltic cooperation could have been a great asset in the case of the minority education reform in Latvia, which has been harshly criticized in the international sphere by Russia.
The Baltic Assembly was set up in 1991 as a cooperational institution for the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian parliaments. Each Baltic state is represented at the assembly by 20 MPs.
Despite whittling down the assembly, the three parliamentary speakers said continued cooperation was vital to Baltic prosperity and discussed a possible visit by all three Baltic state heads to the United States to strengthen mutual cooperation.
Udre said the Baltic countries' new membership in the EU and NATO would give the nations greater access to information on international affairs, especially concerning the fight against terrorism.
"We will have a better chance at gaining information on how we can help," she said.
The reform plan for the assembly is expected to be prepared by November.
At the meeting, the presidium of the Baltic Assembly also condemned the recent inflammatory remarks made by Russia's Deputy State Duma Speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky against Latvia.
The assembly's formal announcement stated that the comments made by Zhirinovsky, which included a threat to annihilate the Baltic country, could be qualified as "completely irresponsible, as they include open encouragement for terror and create tension in mutual relations."
Remarks by the deputy speaker of the State Duma in recent weeks caused a scandal, as he stated that death-squads in Russia were prepared to wipe the country off the face of the earth and bombard the capital cities of the Baltics.
The authors of the announcement passed by the Baltic Assembly said that such remarks had also been made earlier, raising questions as to why neither the Russian State Duma nor the Russian Foreign Ministry have yet reacted to these inflammatory words.
"The democratically thinking politicians that have united on April 3 in the fight against terrorism across the world have the right to expect from their Russian colleagues not only condemnation of such remarks but also measures to prevent this from repeating. With this the Russian State Duma would in action prove that it is ready to fight terrorism in any form of expression," stated the announcement.
