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VILNIUS, July 5 (Xinhua) — All the challenges that the EU and NATO are facing need solidarity among the members, therefore, Italy demonstrates its solidarity with Lithuania in all cooperation areas, Italian President Sergio Mattarella said here on Thursday.
The president is on his official visit to Lithuania, where he met with the Baltic country’s President Dalia Grybauskaite.
“We are showing our solidarity with Lithuania as we believe that this is the only way to face the current challenges. There is no any state which could face those challenges by itself, cooperation within the EU and NATO is necessary,” Mattarella said during his meeting with Lithuanian counterpart.
International security issues, cooperation within NATO, migration in Italy and Europe, economic development, the EU’s new multiannual budget and other issues were on the presidents’ meeting agenda, Lithuania’s presidency said in a statement.
Mattarella expressed his gratitude to Lithuania’s president and the country’s delegation for the input at the EU’s summit on migration issues last week. The EU leaders agreed at the summit to establish new “control centers” in Europe for housing and processing asylum seekers, and to take other cooperative steps on migration policy.
“I would like to sincerely thank Grybauskaite and her delegation for the accord that we were also feeling during earlier conversations. We are united by solidarity in all areas,” Italian president said.
“Lithuania understands what a huge burden as regards migration is carried by Italy and feels its duty to contribute,” Grybauskaite was quoted as saying in the presidency’s statement.
Grybauskaite echoed Mattarella’s stance by saying that Lithuania and Italy are joined together by successful cooperation in all areas, including economy.
“Italy is Lithuania’s eighth largest trade partner. Lithuania’s export to Italy has been growing for 6 years in a row. Lithuanian food products such as cheese, fish products, beverages have already found its way to Italian cuisine,” Grybauskaite noted.
In her words, cooperation between Lithuania and Italy also has a lot of potential in the area of information technologies and life sciences.

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