Our natural allies are our Nordic neighbours. I always try to point out that if we had not been invaded in 1940, if we had remained independent, we would be no different from Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. In fact, prior to World War II, we had a much bigger economy than Finland or Norway. They were relatively poor countries compared to Latvia or Estonia. We have 50 years of catching up to do, but culturally and politically, we're very close.
One of our best venues for this co-operation is the Nordic-Baltic Eight. We meet at all levels. Our presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, and foreign affairs committee chairs meet every six months in one of the eight countries. We just compare notes. We work together.
I remember in 1991 when we restored independence and joined the UN, we did not have an ambassador yet at the UN, and I was in Washington. I was deputy chief of mission for our embassy. Our ambassador also had to go to the UN. The first week of being members, we had to vote on dozens of issues and we had no idea, so the Nordics immediately formed a working group. Every week, they got together and briefed the Baltic states on how they were looking at these issues, and it helped us a lot. Now, we make our own decisions.
I see this co-operation across the board. There are a lot of different formats of Nordic-Baltic co-operation, plus we share the Baltic Sea environmental concerns. Even though Finland and Sweden are not members of NATO, they probably—especially Sweden—are more actively supportive of NATO than maybe some NATO countries are. They're fully engaged. This fall, Sweden had military exercises in the Baltics, which included many of our countries.
So that's very close, but there's also a natural co-operation with the eastern European countries, although the politics sometimes differ there. I've noticed that, for example, Italy has become a very close friend. Then again, right now everybody's lobbying us to get the EU medical agency that's leaving London. About 20 countries are trying to get this huge agency. Suddenly, we're gaining a lot of friends from everybody who wants us to vote for them. I'd say the Nordics—the old Hanseatic League—is, for us, our natural regional alliance.