War shifts Europe's center of political gravity to EU's eastern part – Cmilyte-Nielsen

VILNIUS – Geopolitical changes resulting from Russia's war against Ukraine have shifted the center of gravity of European politics toward the EU's eastern part and have made the region's countries a "vigilant memory for Western societies", according Viktorija Cmilyte-Nielsen, speaker of the Lithuanian parliament. 

Cmilyte-Nielsen is taking part in a meeting of the Baltic and Polish in Warsaw on Monday.

"Our parliaments have a great deal of power in shaping public opinion and countering the propaganda and disinformation spread by our enemies, as well as in reminding us of the moral obligations that democracies have to shoulder," she said in a press release. 

"We become a vigilant memory for Western societies, constantly reminding them that the war in Ukraine is a war against them too."

At the meeting, the parliamentary speakers of Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Poland signed a joint declaration on stepping up parliamentary cooperation in response to geopolitical threats.

Cmilyte-Nielsen noted in the press release that the center of gravity of European politics has now shifted to the EU's eastern part and that the Baltic countries and Poland had been at the forefront of initiatives to help Ukraine and to sanction Russia or Belarus even before the start of the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Baltic states and Poland should be active wherever decisions on the future of Europe are taken, and act on all platforms that have an impact on this, including the Three Seas Initiative, according to the speaker.