Peking University, Sept. 26, 2012: Andrius Kubilius, Prime Minister of the Republic of Lithuania visited Peking University (PKU) and gave a talk entitled Europe in Crisis: Lessons Learned and Lessons Ignored on Sept. 13, 2012.

In his talk, Kubilius introduced the history of Lithuania, discussed the situation of European Union and told the stories of Northern Baltic Region and Luthuania’s success. He pointed out that Europe emerged as a stronger economic body although it always encountered crisis from one to another in the development. He said, “European Union is recovering from crisis, but from the historical point of view, the outcome is always the same: stronger, more consolidated and united Europe”.

In 1990, the Republic of Luthuania declared its independence and has achieved lots of development during the past decades, which were economy and basketball. “Since 2009, we have been fighting crisis and took tough measures in the pursuit of growth in the international market. I’d be happy to see the increase from China’s part” said the Prime Minister. He also gave high evaluation of the dynamic Northern Baltic Region and the regional integration significance for economic growth. Besides, he presented the opportunities for investment in Luthuania, especially in high technology sector.

Kubilius expressed that education is the basis of the development of the region and priority areas for cooperation and hoped that both China and Luthuania would work together to boost the future education exchange and cooperation.

Before the lecture, PKU President Zhou Qifeng met with the Prime Minister Andruis Kubilius and both sides agreed to establish collaboration between Peking University and Vilnius University.

Written by: Zhang Jiang