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VILNIUS, Dec 22, BNS - The European Union will continue discussions on Lithuania and other EU member states' wish to evaluate crimes by Nazi and communist regimes according to the same criteria, Lithuanian Foreign Affairs Minister Audronius Azubalis said on Wednesday.

He said that a letter to the European Commission on the criminalization of crimes by communist regimes, signed by ministers of six Central and Eastern European countries, has reached its goal, although the Commission evaluated it skeptically.

In Azubalis' opinion, the main achievement is the fact that the European Commission will continue discussions. The minister underlined that it took six years for Germany to criminalize Nazi crimes across the EU.

"The main thing is that the Commission will continue discussions on the matter. It was our main goal for the issue not to be closed this year. As the Commission might have closed the issue based on the report," Azubalis told journalists in the parliament.

"I can really be thrilled and tell everyone the letter has reached its goal. The issue will not be closed, it will be further discussed. The aim of the letter by the six ministers was to attract the Commission's attention that the issue is very complicated and needs more attention from the Commission, and we got it," the minister added.

The European Commission has rejected calls from Lithuania and other Eastern European states to criminalize the denial of crimes perpetrated by communist regimes, the Guardian reports.

"There is no consensus on it. The different member states have wildly differing approaches," EU justice spokesman Matthew Newman told the Guardian. He said the commission takes the issue "very seriously", but: "At this stage, the conditions to make a legislative proposal have not been met. The commission will continue to keep this matter under review."

Lithuania and five other Central and Eastern European countries urged the EC this month to give proper evaluation to totalitarian regimes and said they wanted proper amount of attention to crimes by Communist regimes as well.

"The principle of justice should assure a just treatment of victims of every totalitarian regime," the foreign ministers of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania said in a joint letter to Viviane Reding, the European justice commissioner, earlier this month, a copy of which was obtained by BNS.

The six ministers expressed hope the Commission will take further actions, "including a possible legal initiative to criminalize public condoning, denial and gross trivialization of totalitarian crimes against groups defined by social status or political convictions."