Deputy Secretary General joins security leaders at Snow meeting
NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller visited Lithuania on Thursday and Friday (12 and 13 January 2017) to participate in the high-level Snow Meeting, bringing together Lithuanian and international security experts. In the margins of the forum, Ambassador Gottemoeller met with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius and Defence Minister Raimundas Karoblis.
The “Snow Meeting” is an annual high-level discussion forum organised by the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry to address challenges facing the Euro-Atlantic community. 2017 marks the 10th anniversary of the Snow Meeting. This year’s discussions in Trakai, Lithuania will examine the decisions taken at the Warsaw Summit and closer NATO-EU cooperation. The sessions will be attended by senior security experts and government officials, including Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs, Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser and Georgian Foreign Minister Mikhail Janelidze.
In her meetings with Foreign Minister Linkevičius and Defence Minister Karoblis, the Deputy Secretary General discussed the implementation of NATO’s enhanced forward presence in the Baltic States and Poland. She also commended Lithuania for its decision to host a multinational NATO battalion in Rukla, as well as its commitment to increase defence spending to 2% of GDP by 2018.