From Monday 22 April to Friday 26 April 2024, participants of the current year of the Security Academy visited Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia during a study visit. The intensive programme included visits to local institutions and meetings with all three Czech ambassadors to the Baltic region. During a series of interesting discussions, we focused on foreign and security policy, current threats, especially hybrid ones, building social resilience, as well as digitalisation of public administration and familiarisation with the functioning of national and international institutions based in the Baltics.
We started the program with a visit to the Tallinn-based CCDCOE, the Alliance's Centre of Excellence for Cooperative Cyber Defence, where preparations for the Locked Shield exercise were at their peak. This represents the largest cyber defense exercise ever and involved over 4,000 experts. We then finished the first day at the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Tallinn with a discussion with Ambassador David Kral and First Secretary Vratislav Grégre.
On Tuesday, we met with analysts from the International Centre for Defence and Security Studies (ICDS) to discuss the situation in Ukraine and its impact on the Baltic region and Europe as a whole. We also visited the Estonian Parliament - Riigikogu and the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On the third day, the programme continued in Vilnius with a visit to the Lithuanian Military Academy (Generolas Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija) and a meeting with members of the Hybrid Threat Resilience Group at the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defence. In the afternoon, we met with Marius Janukonis, Director of the Strategic Management and Analysis Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania. We concluded our visit to Vilnius on Thursday with a discussion with the Czech Ambassador to Lithuania, Ales Opatou, and diplomat Maria Stojanova.
The program in Riga was introduced by a discussion with Martin Vítek, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Latvia, Veronika Sidó, Deputy Ambassador and Secretary Tomáš Pavlíček. This was followed by a visit to the NATO Centre for Strategic Communication in Riga, where we were visited by senior expert Mario Nicolini. After the last meeting of the entire study tour, which was reserved for Viktors Makarovs, Special Representative for Digital Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, we transferred to the airport and travelled to Prague.
The study visit itself was preceded by a meeting with the Ambassadors of the Baltic States in the Czech Republic, namely Gita Kalmet, Ambassador of Estonia, Elita Kuzma, Ambassador of Latvia and Laimonas Talat-Kelpša, Ambassador of Lithuania to the Czech Republic, whom we would like to thank for their cooperation in the preparation of the program.
The study visit was supported by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.
