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During the  European Neighbourhood Policy Conference in Brussels Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Petras Vaitiekūnas suggested that more attention should be paid to the Eastern neighbours of the European Union. The Conference was organized by the European Commission on 3 September.

“The European Neighbourhood Policy is an excellent instrument of highlighting and consolidating European values. It is important for the countries of the European Union Eastern Neighbourhood to obtain an opportunity to apply the components of political cooperation that are similar to those used by the Southern EU neighbours,” indicated Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

P.Vaitiekūnas identified the main areas, in which the European Union should give concrete suggestions to the Eastern European neighbours -  i.e., the Minister stressed the issues of providing Moldova with autonomous trade preferences and signing of the free trade agreement with Georgia. The Minister also indicated that it was important to encourage further the free trade and coherently integrate the European Neighbourhood Policy countries into the internal market of the European Union.

Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs invited the European Commission to finalise the negotiations on the facilitated  visa regime with Moldova and to prepare the negotiation mandate for the same agreement with Georgia. P.Vaitiekūnas raised the question regarding the visa fees for Belarusian citizens  - those fees will become more expensive after Lithuania joins the Schengen area.

The Head of Lithuanian diplomacy encouraged participants of the Conference to draw attention to the problem of the ‘frozen conflicts’ in the territories of Georgia and Moldova. After the international expert commissions had announced their conclusions regarding the incident when a rocket fell on the territory of Georgia, Lithuanian minister invited the EU countries to state clearly their common position on the issue.

The Conference was attended by the ministers of foreign affairs, other governmental representatives and members of nongovernmental organisations from 43 EU Member States and European Neighbourhood Policy countries.

On the eve of the Conference, on 2 September, P.Vaitiekūnas also took part at the informal meeting of ministers of foreign affairs of the Baltic, Wishegrad and the Eastern European Neighbourhood Policy countries – namely, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The meeting was organized at the initiative of Lithuanian and Polish Ministers of Foreign Affairs. During it the ministers discussed important issues of the European Neighbourhood Policy.

Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs invited the EU’s Eastern Neighbours to continue implementing the reforms and to work together seeking to draw greater attention of the EU to problems that are important to those countries.

P.Vaitiekūnas stressed that all the phases of the EU enlargement were successful, especially the last one, when all countries of the Vilnius Ten implemented progressive reforms and became members of the European Union.

“The European Neighbourhood Policy is extremely useful. However, it should not be in any way regarded as a substitute for further EU enlargement. The door has to be left open, and Lithuania will continue to support the aspirations for the European integration of the countries that are covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy,” said the Head of Lithuanian diplomacy.