On 20 September 2023, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted a meeting of the Baltic States and Nordic countries (NB8) – Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden – on cooperation in the field of communication.
The participants discussed the latest developments in the communications sector, while analysing possibilities for deepening cooperation. In 2010, the NB8 Ministers of Foreign Affairs mandated high-level experts – former Latvian Foreign Minister Valdis Birkavs and Danish Defence Minister Søren Gade – to define priority areas for cooperation in the NB8 format. The proposals, for instance, promoting the NB8 brand of cooperation remain relevant. During the meeting, the participants exchanged views on measures to implement this priority.
Latvia is the coordinating country of the NB8 cooperation in 2023, and its priorities lie in the strengthening of a rules-based international order, as well as military security, deterrence, and resilience. Overall, the NB8 has been working successfully towards the implementation of those priorities, actively voicing and providing support to Ukraine, and making effort to achieve the international isolation of Russia and Belarus.
Last year, the coordinator of the NB8 cooperation was Lithuania.
