On Thursday, 10 November, in the Saeima building there will be an official medal awarding ceremony of the Baltic Assembly (BA).
The BA medal will be awarded to Guntis Ulmanis, former President of Latvia; Anatolijs Gorbunovs, Ilga Kreituse, and Alfrēds Čepānis, former Speakers of the Saeima, as well as Solvita Āboltiņa, incumbent Speaker of the Saeima, for their outstanding services in strengthening the unity and supporting cooperation among the Baltic States. Māris Gailis and Valdis Birkavs will also receive the BA medal for ensuring great progress in Baltic cooperation during their term of office as Prime Minister. Aleksands Kiršteins, who as a member of the Supreme Council actively supported establishing of the Baltic Assembly in the beginning of the 1990’s, will also receive the medal.
Likewise, the BA commemorative medals will be awarded to Māris Kučinskis, Oskars Zīds and Uģis Rotbers, MPs of the 10th Saeima.
The BA medal will be also awarded to Ance Karnupa, who was the first secretary of the Latvian delegation to the Baltic Assembly in the beginning of the 1990’s, when the Baltic Assembly was established, as well as the first Secretary of the Baltic Assembly. Furthermore, BA medals will be awarded to staff members of the Saeima who for 20 years have supported the Baltic Assembly and have helped to ensure its functioning, namely, Valdis Ziemelis, Deputy Director of the Chancellery; Irēna Strelča, Head of the Transcript Department; and Raimonda Klancberga, Deputy Head of the Transcript Department.
During the awards ceremony, letters of appreciation of the Baltic Assembly will be presented to those staff members and departments of the Saeima who by their zealous work have facilitated and ensured the development of the organisation, as well as built its good reputation.
The awards ceremony will begin on Thursday, 10 November, at 18:00 in the White Room of the main building of the Saeima at Jēkaba iela 11. An address will be given by Solvita Āboltiņa, Speaker of the Saeima; the medals and letters of appreciation will be awarded by members of the BA Presidium.
The medal of the Baltic Assembly is an award granted to members of the Assembly, as well as other persons, for their outstanding services in strengthening the unity and supporting the cooperation of the Baltic States. The medal is awarded by the Presidium of the BA on the basis of a nomination by each national delegation of the Baltic States.
The Baltic Assembly is an interparliamentary cooperation organisation of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania established for coordinating the Baltic States' cooperation on the parliamentary level, discussing issues and projects of mutual interest and expressing a common position on political, economic, social and cultural issues on the EU and international level. The Baltic Assembly consists of national delegations – 12 to 20 members from each country’s parliament.
Saeima Press Service