News

On 22 January at the EU General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) meeting in Brussels EU foreign ministers agreed to start negotiation on the new enhanced Agreement between the EU and Ukraine.

“Clear signal should be sent to Ukraine to encourage its European strivings and current reforms,”  Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Petras Vaitiekūnas said.

Minister Vaitiekūnas thanked the European Commission for excellent proposal on strengthening the European Neighbourhood Policy and underlined that the EU should think not only about progressing neighbours but also how to involve Belarus in this process.

Mr Vaitiekūnas marked that creation of a common energy market is a prerequisite for effective European Energy Policy.

“I welcome the Commission’s decision to name four priority links and strengthen their European coordination. Unfortunately this does not solve the problem of integration of isolated gas markets, depending on a single external gas provider and single “pipeline”, into the EU network. The European Union should provide practical decisions and connection of Polish and Lithuanian gas pipelines should become European interest,” the Head of Lithuanian Diplomacy stated.

The EU foreign ministers also discussed the European Commission’s reports on implementation of the Lisbon strategy, relations with states of Western Balkans, Iran, Iraq and Libya.

Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vaitiekūnas also met with his Hungarian counterpart Dr. Kinga Goncz. At the meeting Minister Vaitiekūnas welcomed successful participation of Lithuanian companies in privatization of Hungarian company MALEV. Minister Goncz stressed that the privatization will be transparent and objective.