News

On 21 February at the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Egidijus Meilūnas said that Lithuania supported legitimate aspirations of the people in the EU’s Southern neighbourhood, especially in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia.

The Vice-Minister supported the EU’s efforts to mobilize all the available means to promote democratic change in this region.

The Foreign Affairs Council also noted that the EU’s support had to be differentiated and country-specific allocations should depend on their progress in democratic reforms.

The EU foreign ministers also adopted the conclusions on the EU actions in defence of the freedom of religion and belief from intolerance and violence, in response to the recent attacks launched against Christians and representatives of other religious in the third countries, including Egypt and Iraq.

The conclusions of the Foreign Affairs Council reflect Lithuania’s position on this matter: the attacks against Christians were condemned, the obligation of the countries to guarantee the freedom of religion and belief was emphasized, the EU’s commitment was affirmed to continue the fight against religious intolerance, to raise this issue in multilateral fora and in relations with the third countries, to promote interfaith dialogue.

When speaking about Belarus, Vice-Minister E.Meilūnas stressed the significance of support for the Belarusian civil society, informed about the conference on implementing assistance for Belarus civic society that took place in Vilnius and about the activities of the Democracy and Development Fund.

The Vice-Minister drew the participants’ attention to the necessity of strengthening the Vilnius-based European Humanities University. The Vice-Minister urged a more rapid approval of the mandate of the Commission to open the negotiations with Belarus on liberalizing visa regime and readmission agreements.

The EU heads of diplomacy also discussed the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Middle East peace process and human rights situation in Iran, especially executions for political purposes. They discussed possibilities to introduce targeted sanctions against Iranian officials, who are responsible for on-going human rights violations.