OREANDA-NEWS. June 27, 2008. "We have been doing and are trying to do all for Ukraine to become a member of the European Union and NATO, from lobbying Ukrainian interests in Europe to sharing our personal experience obtained on this path," Latvian President Valdis Zatlers told a round-table meeting at Lviv's Franko national university.

On the agenda of the meeting, which was also attended by representatives of diplomatic, military and business circles of that Baltic country, there was a wide range of questions, from power security guarantees to advantages of participation in the EU and NATO. Zatlers says, "Ukraine is becoming ever more influential country of Eastern Europe, as it has all signs of a democratic nation, including free market, speech freedom and multiparty system."

We treat with understanding your choice of Ukraine's future, recalling the times when entry to the EU or NATO was something inaccessible for Latvia. Moreover, Latvia itself had a lot of citizens skeptical about NATO. But we chose the path of great and difficult reforms in the society, while holding insistent explanatory work. Particularly, on the path to NATO, we fully reorganized the army, which now meets international standards, and developed a new strategy of external security.

In the Latvian President's opinion, Ukraine is today much closer to the North Atlantic Alliance than Latvia was once, because Ukraine traditionally takes part in all of its peacekeeping actions. On the other hand, the EU standards enabled Latvia to make a decisive move in the fight against corruption and bureaucracy. "I will give just one figure," Zatlers said adding, "to bring our legislation closer to European standards, we had to translate and adapt 80,000 pages of legal acts! We are ready to share the experience of our problems and mistakes, as well as successful moves. Particularly, we obtained a great support of Latvian diaspora in different countries, and you must do the same. As regards the supply of energy carriers on which depend both we and Ukraine, Latvia is calling for simultaneous admission of Ukraine and Georgia to the EU and NATO, which will really create an alternative to the current route of energy flow from the Caucasus via Ukraine further to Europe".