Lisbon, Portugal, 27/05/2021 - 22:14, UNIQUE ID: 210527 24
Remarks
Good afternoon to all of you.
First of all, thank you Augusto, thank you to my friend the Minister [of State for Foreign Affairs of Portugal] Augusto Santos Silva for hosting us here today in this beautiful place, the Belém Cultural Center, and for the excellent organisation of today’s meeting – also for the gastronomy. I think that all the colleagues of the Foreign Affairs Council have noticed and they are very thankful.
It has been a long meeting because we had in our agenda three very important topics. First, we started with the relationship with Africa. And I am going to jump to French since we are talking about Africa.
Lithuania bars airport access to carriers flying over Belarus
76
The Ryanair flight from Athens arrives in Vilnius after being forcibly diverted to Minsk. / BNS
Lithuania’s government has banned flights from departing or arriving in the country if they have used, or plan to use, the Belarusian airspace, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė announced on Monday.
The minister said the decision was made in response to the “airliner’s hijacking operation” on Sunday.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis also called on EU member states to follow suit.
The ban will take effect at 00:00 UTC (03:00 Vilnius time) on May 25.
“Yesterday s incident made it very clear that, unfortunately, even our citizens are not safe while flying in the neighbouring country s airspace, and we can t be sure that an aircraft won t be forced to land for one reason or another,” Transport Minister Marius Skuodis told the cabinet.
Statement to the press by Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, following the European Union Foreign Affairs Council (Paris, 18 May 2021) Share
Ladies and gentlemen,
The Foreign Affairs Council meeting is not over, but given diary constraints, as I need to join the President of the Republic at the Conference on the Financing of African Economies, I would still like to seize this opportunity to talk to you. The President may come back to this subject when he talks to the press later.
What I really want to say is both a personal and a political belief. What is happening – these moments of great violence – shows that the idea that some entertained for a while, that we could simply ignore the conflict in the Middle East and that it would go away on its own, on the basis that things would sort themselves out with time if we pretended to forget they existed, is disappearing. It was a fancy of the mind and, on the contrary, reality is returning, violently.
Media advisory - Foreign Affairs Council (Trade) of 20 May 2021 consilium.europa.eu - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from consilium.europa.eu Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.