“This is Austria’s decision. However, we expect that close cooperation between Lithuania and Austria will be continued, both on the bilateral level and in the EU and other international organizations,” Kęstutis Vaškelevičius, spokesman for the Lithuanian foreign minister, told BNS.
Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said on Friday that the country was planning to close its embassies in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Malta in the autumn of 2018 as part of optimization of its foreign representation network.
The Austrian news agency APA quoted Kurz as saying that the decision to close the embassies had been made given that these embassies were less active in providing consular services and economic cooperation.
The Austrian minister also said that the decision to close the embassies in the Baltics had nothing to do with the current political situation and the threat posed by Russia.
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