Remarks by President António Costa at the joint press conference with Prime Minister of Latvia, Evika Siliņa
European Council / Council of the European Union
European Council
Statements and remarks
9 September 2025 12:40
Dear Evika, first of all, thank you very much for your warm welcome.
It is very important for me to listen to each leader ahead of this new political year because we are a union of nations, a union of diversity, and all voices count in building our unity and our common position.
We have clearly two main priorities: security - defence, and competitiveness. This week I am visiting the Baltic states and I will continue to Poland. It is very clear that you are on the front line of our common border and of our common security and defence challenges.
I think it is very important for our union to understand that your border is our common border, and your security is our common security. For this purpose, we need to continue to develop the Europe of Defence because we need to have a common strategy, a common spending effort, and a common goal to ensure our common defence and security.
Of course, security and defence go hand in hand with competitiveness, because when we invest in defence, we are investing in research, in innovation, in our defence industry, and in creating better jobs. This is also very important. On the other side, only with strong economies we can support the huge budgetary effort we need to make to ensure a good level of defence and the protection of our borders.
That is the reason why we will need to work very hard to approve the new long-term budget of the European Union. We need to have a budget that can match our new ambitions on competitiveness, on security, and on defence.
Once again, thank you very much, dear Evika, for this opportunity to talk face to face and to have the opportunity to listen to you. I know that we can count on you personally, and on Latvia, to strengthen our union.
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