Niinistö to join Lithuanian centenary, Munich Conference

President Sauli Niinistö will attend the Centennial Celebration of the Restoration of the State of Lithuania on Friday in Vilnius, said an official press release.

Among those attending the celebrations will be the presidents of Estonia, Latvia, Germany and Iceland, and members of the Danish and Swedish royal families.

The President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė will receive the guests at the Presidential Palace, where the flags of the Baltic states will be hoisted to mark the centenaries of those countries.

After the ceremony, the guests will progress to Vilnius Cathedral for a holy mass. The visit will end with lunch at the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania.

From Vilnius, Niinistö will proceed to Munich for the International Security Conference which is being held from 16 to 18 February.

This year the conference agenda will focus in particular on the role of the European Union as a global actor and its relations with Russia and the United States.

In addition, the conflicts in the Middle East, the political developments in the Sahel region and arms control issues will also be a focus of discussions.

Niinistö will take part in, among other things, the MSC Arctic Security Roundtable on Saturday, where he will make the opening statement in the panel discussion. Finland currently holds the chairmanship of the Arctic Council.

During the conference, the President will also have bilateral meetings with, among others, the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko.

The Munich Security Conference has been held since 1963 and will bring together almost 500 key foreign and security policy decision-makers from around the world.