Eduardo González
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will begin tomorrow a tour of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as part of the commemorations for the centenary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with the three Baltic countries.
The tour -which takes place three months after the one carried out by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia- will begin tomorrow in Estonia, where Pedro Sánchez will be received by the President, Kersti Kaljulaid; the Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, and the President of the Parliament, Henn Põlluaas. Besides, the head of the Executive will visit in Tallinn, together with Kalla, the exhibition Zuloaga, the soul of Spain. President Kaljulaid paid an official visit to Madrid on March 8, on the occasion of the centenary of diplomatic relations. Besides, the country has a contingent of Spanish troops integrated in the NATO Center of Excellence in Cyber Defense, of which Spain is not only a founding member, but is also at the head of the Operations Command.
On Wednesday, Pedro Sánchez will travel to Latvia, where he will meet the Prime Minister, Arturs Krisjanis Karins, and the President of the Parliament, Inara Murniece (the President of the Republic, Egis Levits, will not be able to receive him because he is attending a summit in Sofia). He will also visit the 300 Spanish soldiers stationed at the Adazi base as part of NATO’s Operation Enhanced Forward Presence. Latvia and Spain are also commemorating this year the centenary of the establishment of diplomatic relations and the thirtieth anniversary of their restoration.
The head of the Executive will conclude his Baltic tour on July 8 in Lithuania, where he will visit the Siauliai base, where Spain has seven Eurofighter aircraft deployed until August 31 as part of NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission. At the same base he will be received by the President of Lithuania, Gitanas Nauseda. He will then travel to the capital, Vilnius, where he will meet the Prime Minister, Ingrida Simonyte, with whom he will hold the only press conference scheduled for the entire tour.
In the Lithuanian capital, Sánchez will meet with the Belarusian opposition leader in exile, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who lives in Vilnius and with whom he could not meet in Madrid last December because he was forced to stay in quarantine due to a case of COVID-19. Besides, the President of the Government will be received by the President of the Lithuanian Basketball Federation, Arvydas Sabonis, former player of the Soviet and Lithuanian national teams, Real Madrid, Fórum Filatélico de Valladolid and the NBA. Spain and Lithuania will commemorate the centenary of their relations in 2022, as well as the thirtieth anniversary of the reestablishment of these relations and the success of the Lithuanian basketball team at the Barcelona Olympic Games.
