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On 2 September during his visit in Vilnius, EU Commissioner for Enlargement Günter Verheugen met Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antanas Valionis. This was a farewell visit of Günter Verheugen. In the new European Commission he will occupy the post of Vice President and Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry, also responsible for implementation of the Lisbon strategy. At the meeting, the Minister and the EU Commissioner discussed the priorities of Lithuanian foreign policy in the context of European neighbourhood policy. In Antanas Valionis’ opinion, the European Union should cooperate more actively with Ukraine, Moldova and the Southern Caucasus states, as the Eastern EU members are not less important than the Southern ones. Günter Verheugen shared the opinion of Minister Valionis. He underlined that one of the most important aspects of the EU relations with its Eastern neighbours, which had been more or less abandoned so far, would be economic and social development of the Kaliningrad region, surrounded by the EU states. If no actions follow and the Kaliningrad region will orient towards other Russian regions rather than Lithuania and Poland with rapidly growing economy, the social gap will deepen, unavoidably causing political tension. The implementation of this goal, i.e. encouragement of economic and social development of the Kaliningrad region, will require specific contacts and experience of the Lithuanian residents, thus, according to the EU Commissioner, the EU expects a special input of Lithuania to this matter. On the same day, Günter Verheugen was granted the title of Honorary Doctor of the Law University of Lithuania.