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On 28 May in Brussels, the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Rolandas Kriščiūnas attended the meeting of EU development ministers and called for more attention to reforms in developing countries. “When speaking about development cooperation, we believe that the European Union should support structural changes in partner countries. We should better use the experience of the member states in delivering EU aid and expand the geographical scope of twinning and technical assistance initiatives” Kriščiūnas said.

At the Foreign Affairs (Development) Council, the Lithuanian Foreign Vice-Minister stressed that the closer coordination of EU development aid would be especially useful in the Eastern Partnership countries such as Georgia and Moldova, as well as Afghanistan.

“We would also appreciate a more in depth discussion on how the principles of EU development aid should be applied in the neighbourhood countries. Since next autumn we will have the Easter Partnership Summit in Vilnius, we invite the ministers responsible for development cooperation to exchange information in a more active way on how we respond to the development needs and priorities and how we allocate the EU aid,” Kriščiūnas said.

Kriščiūnas also held a meeting with EU Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs to discuss key issues related to the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union and development cooperation issues, including the possibility to speed up the negotiations on one of the most important documents – the Development Cooperation Instrument.

During the European Development Days (EDD) that are organised in Brussels in November by the European Commission, Lithuania is going to hold a high-level panel discussion on applying transition experience in development cooperation initiatives.

The Lithuanian Foreign Vice-Minister also met with the Irish Minister for Trade and Development Joe Costello and discussed the issues that Lithuania will inherit from the current Irish EU Presidency.