Finland Times

 

The three-day Lapland Retreat-2013 was concluded on Sunday amidst recommendations of the leaders of the European Union states to strengthen the common foreign and security policies among the EU nations.  

The Finland Prime Minister, Jyrki Katainen  said Finland has taken the common foreign and security  issues  with  great importance and the issues are expected to be discussed in the upcoming EU summit  scheduled for December this year.

Katainen said that the foreign and security issues were not given due importance in the EU summit despite having its necessity following the changes taken place in the global security policy. 

He said that the USA defense importance has been decreased significantly, which prompted the EU leaders to discuss the security measures with due emphasis.

Regarding the cooperation, the Finnish Primer hoped that  there should be necessary cooperation among the EU member states in material purchase and some degree of military capabilities.

He also hoped that the each and every country would continue to uphold the strategic performances in the state accordingly.

The three-day informal meeting held at Saariselkä  in Lapland, however, did not make any decision or guideline rather  the leaders got together to share future planning regarding the Europe and EU.

Earlier, on the first day of the meeting Katainen said that the Cyprus was going through a tough situation and the EU bailout program extending cooperation to overcome the situation.

He viewed that the banking sector should respond in a positive way to Cyprus despite the concern of public outrages.

The Prime Minister, Jyrki Katainen and Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb  were the hosts of the high-level informal meeting entitled, Lapland Retreat 2013.

The intention  of the meeting was to bring European leaders together to discuss  the issues in an informal and leisurely way  but there are no specific topical agenda for discussion. 

The Lapland Retreat 2013 is attended by Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanović, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, Irish Minister of State for European Affairs Lucinda Creighton, Spanish Secretary of sate for the European Union Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, and member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank Jörg Asmussen.

The Greek Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, who was also scheduled to attend the meeting had to cancel the programme following deepening the Cypriot crisis.