The signing of the accession agreement: Mr. Alan Raiter, left, and Mr. Gediminas Kazlauskas, right.
….to become a full Member State of EUMETSAT by January 1, 2014, subject to ratification by the Lithuanian parliament. At the same time, Lithuania signed the extension of its Cooperating State agreement with EUMETSAT by a further two years to cover the period 2012-2013. The two agreements were signed by Mr. Gediminas Kazlauskas, the Lithuanian Minister of the Environment, and Alain Ratier, Director-General of EUMETSAT.
Lithuania will become a full Member State of EUMETSAT by 2014 after having been a Cooperating State since 2005. Ratier welcomed the Lithuanian accession: “The signature of the accession agreement is the result of active cooperation between Lithuania and EUMETSAT. It clearly shows that Lithuania is aware of the value of our satellites for the monitoring of weather, climate and the environment, and will soon be ready to fully participate in strategic decisions on our future programmes, such as the EUMETSAT Polar System Second Generation.” As a Member State, Lithuania will participate fully in EUMETSAT’s decision-making process and its industry will be able to bid for contracts, in addition to maintaining the unlimited access to all EUMETSAT data and products for official duty use it has enjoyed since becoming a Cooperating State.
Kazlauskas said, “The Republic of Lithuania will become a EUMETSAT Member State after completing a nine-year transition as a Cooperating State. This is a very important step because full membership allows us to share all the data and information needed to further improve our environmental monitoring, early warning and prediction systems and our means to monitor the climate and issue more accurate weather forecasts.” The accession of Lithuania will contribute to EUMETSAT’s objective to have 31 Member States in 2014.
