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ACHIEVEMENTS AND EXPECTATIONS DISCUSSED OVER MINISTER VALIONIS’ MEETING WITH EU DIPLOMATS

During the Spanish Presidency of the EU, Lithuania has started addressing the most sensitive issues in the EU entry talks, while the conclusion of those and other issues will fall on the six-month term of Danish presidency, Minister of Foreign Affairs Antanas Valionis noted during his meeting with EU diplomats on 27 June at the Danish Ambassador’s residence in Turniškės, Vilnius. Over the meeting, Minister Valionis thanked Spain for its productive presidency, recalling that, at the Seville Summit last weekend, the headway of the latest six months was acknowledged and the EU commitment to finish negotiations by the year’s end was confirmed. "Lithuania welcomes the EU agreement achieved in Seville to seek common position with the candidate countries on direct payments to farmers and on other issues of the financial package ", the Chief of Diplomacy said emphasising that, in the talks on agriculture, Lithuania would further maintain its stance of viewing direct payments as part and parcel of the final package of negotiations, and would aspire equal competitive conditions. According to the Foreign Minister, the issue of Europe’s internal security which dominated in Seville is also very topical for Lithuania, since after having become an EU member, Lithuania will be responsible not only for its own border control, but also for the EU’s. Therefore, according to the Minister, we should prepare for discussions on the common EU border protection and share the tasks of border control with other EU member states. Over the Spanish presidency, the issue of the Kaliningrad Region was actively debated. "In this respect, Lithuania maintains that various privileges for inhabitants of the Region are possible, but they must not hinder Lithuania’s accession to the area of the Schengen Agreement, which is free of visa regime and any restrictions to interior border crossing ", Minister Valionis told the EU diplomats. According to the Chief of Lithuania Diplomacy, the first six months also brought some headway to the talks on the Ignalina NPP, namely, the EU had acknowledged the scale and the lasting character of the NPP decommissioning consequences and agreed to negotiate on additional funds for the decommissioning of the NPP. During the meeting with the diplomats, the Lithuanian Foreign Minister congratulated Denmark, which will soon take over the EU Presidency. "I am glad that Denmark has chosen enlargement as a priority for its presidency. Certainly, we still have to agree on several strategic issues, yet the progress already achieved lets us hope that we will be able to announce the end of entry talks in Copenhagen", Minister Valionis said.