Statement by Prime Minister Kaja Kallas at the meeting of the prime ministers of the Baltic States in Riga on 22 April 2022

For that purpose, we have also discussed today how to ensure that Ukraine receives more military, political, economic, and moral support. We cannot afford to get tired and our spirit must not grow weary. The Ukrainians have said that right now, the best humanitarian aid for Ukraine is military aid. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have done a lot, and the European Union and NATO have also done a great deal, but they can do even more. The three of us have the central role in supporting Ukraine. Our location and our historical experience give special weight to our words and actions.

The European Union has done a great deal to stop the Russian war machine through sanctions, but we can do more. Sanctions on gas and oil must be the focus of our efforts. We have also proposed creating a separate escrow account, which would allow the money paid for Russian gas to be used for rebuilding Ukraine in the future. It would allow solving three problems at once. First, this money could not be used to finance the war machine of Russia, and second, we would send a clear signal to Russia that they will pay for every house bombed, for all infrastructure they destroy. Third, we will have already set aside money to rebuild Ukraine later on.

We need to help Ukraine in joining the European Union and gaining candidate status quickly. It is our responsibility and the responsibility of all member states to fully assist Ukraine in becoming part of the European family.

Secondly, today's meeting focused on how we can cooperate in NATO to make the best possible decisions for our region at the Madrid Summit at the end of June. After the aggression of Russia against Ukraine, NATO has more than doubled its military presence in the Baltics. This decision was timely and necessary. However, the security situation in Europe has changed beyond recognition and NATO must keep up with the times. We must convincingly show to Russia that any military aggression against NATO and any NATO state is bound to fail from the very first moment; we must be ready to repel any attempt to attack immediately. It is the only language Putin understands.

At the next NATO summit, we wish to adopt a new defence posture in our region with the Allies. In essence, this means that we will have a greater NATO presence in the air, on land, and at sea. In case of a threat, NATO must be ready to deploy a division of soldiers to protect each of the Baltic states. That would include our own units, Allied units stationed on our territory, as well as Allied forces that can be deployed quickly. NATO's air policing must become air defence. The military presence of NATO in the Baltic Sea must be increased.

Like Krišjanis has already said, all allies must contribute to their security. We are proud to say that all Baltic countries contribute more than 2% of the GDP to their defence spending. In Estonia, it is already 2.5%. Our actions speak for themselves. This allows us to also build new infrastructure to host allied forces. We have done everything we can to protect ourselves better. We have made successive decisions that increase our defence.

One major issue that we also discussed is energy security - how to end our dependence on Russian gas, Russian energy. We have already made the important decision to free ourselves of dependence on Russian gas. We will create the capacity to receive LNG in Paldiski and in the near future, we will conclude an agreement with Finland to lease a joint floating LNG terminal. I am glad that we can also cooperate with Latvia here.

We continue to have good cooperation with Latvia in developing an offshore wind farm. This is a great opportunity for our entire region. At the European Union level, we must continue with the offshore grid project covering the entire Baltic Sea, which is necessary both for the construction of offshore wind farms and for moving cheap electricity to any location by the Baltic Sea.

I am glad to say that we are moving forward with the synchronisation project on schedule. It is important for our people to know that we are already able to synchronise with the Central European system in case of an emergency.

Thank you for your attention!

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