The Latvian Foreign Minister chairs an OECD Ministerial Council session on management

On 31 May 2018, at the annual meeting of the Ministerial Council of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs chaired a session on the OECD’s management issues.

In his remarks, Edgars Rinkēvičs congratulated Lithuania and Colombia on the signing of agreements on the accession to the OECD, which, after deposition of their instruments of ratification, enables them to become full-fledged members of the organisation.  

The Foreign Minister expressed support for the OECD’s further enlargement, this being one of the ways how to promote OECD standards among various global economies and help address current economic challenges faced by governments.

There are also other OECD activities that promote the spread of the organisation’s standards, Edgars Rinkēvičs noted, mentioning cooperation with key partners and various regional and national programmes, including in G7 and G20 countries. We should make use of all these cooperation frameworks to explain the added value of OECD standards and spark the interest of other countries to join them. This would help ensure a level playing field, said the Minister.

Referring to OECD management issues, the Latvian Foreign Minister drew the Council’s attention to the need for each OECD member state to exploit their full membership potential, for instance, by tapping into and offering expertise in many economic sectors. This promotes and makes it possible for each member state to pursue better, more sustainable and more inclusive public policies and foreign policy goals.

Background information

This year, the OECD Ministerial Council is chaired by France, with Latvia and New Zealand as co-chairs. The main theme of the meeting is multilateral cooperation (multilateralism) and its role in addressing the new economic, financial and climate-related challenges.