The Baltic Way commemorated at the House of Lords
On 2 September, 2014 the British Peers and MPs as well as the representatives of the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian communities in the United Kingdom gathered at the House of Lords to commemorate the Baltic Way - an unprecedented human chain spanning over 600 kilometres across Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn in 1989.
A commemorative discussion hosted by Christopher Pincher MP and attended by the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian ambassadors to the UK began with the recollections of the event which took place a quarter of a century ago. The Baltic Ambassadors in turn looked back at the developments of the late 1980’s and presented their personal insights onto the conceptual aspects of the Baltic Way.
In the second part of the discussion the participants focused on the current political developments in the region as the questions from the floor concentrated on Ukraine.
“Parallels can be easily drawn between the developments of the late 1980’s in the Baltic States and the current situation in Ukraine. Neither we were then nor the Ukrainians now are allowed to follow their independent democratic path freely. In the Ukrainian case, the country is facing a severe military aggression too. However, as the truth and a democratic choice prevailed in the Baltics in the late 1980’s they will inevitably triumph in Ukraine as well”. I trust us, the Europeans, to find the feeling of solidarity that the Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians felt during the Baltic way and support our Ukrainian friends”, the Lithuanian Ambassador Asta Skaisgirytė Liauškienė noted.
