| |
 | Press Releases | | |
The President of the Republic met with leading border officials of the Baltic Sea States13.06.2002
President Arnold Rüütel this evening at Kadriorg received the heads of the delegations of states participating in a Baltic Sea States conference on the co-operation in border control.
The President noted that the co-operation effected around the Baltic Sea in many areas was an example for other regions of the world. While doing so he appreciatively acknowledged the joint efforts undertaken in border control targeted at barring from organized crime, terrorism, smuggling, drug trafficking and body trade. As the President stressed, in today's globalizing world those vices were spreading across borders more easily than before, and they only could be curbed by cross-border co-operation.
In the course of the meeting, the global importance of state borders and the need for cross-border co-operation were repeatedly underscored, first of all in connection with the desaster in New York on September 11.
The main subject of the discussion was how to safeguard an efficiant control of the external border of the European Union already prior to the Union's enlargement. President Rüütel expressed his opinion, based on what he had recently seen on the eastern border of Estonia, that the border countries would be able to control the border better than so far in the conditions of an integrated border arrangement on the basis of common standards and uniform funding. The experts from ten Baltic Sea countries and one observer-state agreed with the viewpoint of the Estonian Head of State, but noted at the same time that the decision was up to the politicians.
Press Service of the Office of the President
Kadriorg, June 13, 2002
|
| |
|
vpk.ee
