The ministers of national defense and foreign affairs were obliged to seek that NATO's new concept cover issues very important for Lithuania - collective defense and defense guarantees to every member of the Alliance, that it give due attention to new threats, especially those related to energy security, and that it continue NATO's open door policy, giving the opportunity for other countries that satisfy NATO requirements to join the Alliance.

"For Lithuania, the most important thing is to have concrete security and defense guarantees, making membership in NATO real, not formal," the President says.

The new strategic concept will hopefully be approved at the NATO Summit to be held on November 19-20 in Lisbon.

The State Defense Council also endorsed the State Security Department's activity strategy for 2011-2020 presented by the Department's Director General Gediminas Grina. The strategy provides for a new type of organization of intelligence and counterintelligence activities and introduces changes in the Department's structural organization. The development of a new strategy was one of the first demands of the President for the new head of the Department, who took up the position six months ago.