Holding the meeting here signals a very high political evaluation of Lithuania as a candidate,'' he said. At a new Baltic radar station in the Lithuanian town of Karmelava, Major Viktoras Samochinas showed off the new technology that had been installed. A large electronic map showed the movement and speed of every aircraft flying at that moment around the combined territory of the Baltic states. The three former Soviet states have pooled their resources to form a joint peace-keeping battalion to demonstrate that they are fully capable of working within Nato. Last weekend, in anticipation of this week's Vilnius gathering, past and present Balkan leaders from eight countries met in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, to take a joint position in calling for early admission of the Balkan states.
Enhanced cooperation is the name of the game.
Bulgaria's ex-president, Zehlio Zehlev, who will hold the presidency of the club for three years, called for a Balkans airline, a common internet marketplace and, perhaps, most powerful of all, a regional mobile telephone network. A similarly optimistic mood was in the air earlier this month at a gathering of Nato aspirants in the Slovak capital of Bratislava. There, seven prime ministers and two deputy prime ministers from central and eastern Europe supported Slovakia's premier, Mihulas Dzurinda, in his passionate call for a bold eastwards expansion of the alliance - and sooner rather than later. But it feels that it has more than earned a place, providing vital transit possibilities during the 1999 Kosovo conflict, and, geographically speaking, also providing an important bridge between Hungary and the rest of the alliance. But like other aspirants, Slovakia has been slow to remodel its armed forces and that could be a stumbling block.