A success! The most focused Summit ever in a very pleasant and effective atmosphere!
Those were the words used at the end of the three day discussions and matchmaking in Riga last week at the 15th Baltic Development Forum Summit. More than 600 participants registered and more than 100 companies were present.
The three Prime Ministers of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were very much in line regarding the importance and necessity of the austerities their countries had performed in order to tackle the crisis in the recent years. The Baltic States are now out of the crisis, but the rest of Europe is still in deep crisis. Our part of Europe is dynamic and the next step is to keep up with policies that could maintain the situation and work towards a genuine single market.
Photo: HASSE FERROLD
Valdis Dombrovskis, Prime Minister of Latvia, underlined that compared to the US and Japan the ongoing crisis in Europe is not mainly a debt crisis but a competitiveness crisis. Educating people to the future job markets is essential, he said.
Andrus Ansip, Prime Minister of Estonia, spoke about prioritizing the North-South Rail Baltica project due to the fact that all railways today go east to Moscow, which keeps the prices high and the competitiveness low.
Algirdas Butkevicius, Prime Minister of Lithuania and incoming Chairman of the European Council, has two main goals for the Lithuanian presidency: gathering the Eastern Partnership Summit and prioritizing the Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region in a credible Europe. Like his two colleagues, the Prime Minister mentioned transport and energy being high on the agenda.
Photo: HASSE FERROLD
For more Summit photos visit BDF on Flickr