News

On 22 February Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Petras Vaitiekūnas accepted the invitation of Volker Heinsberg, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany currently presiding over the EU and participated in a working lunch with ambassadors of the EU Member States residing in Vilnius. During the lunch he presented Lithuanian position on the issue of European Neighbourhood Policy.

“The European Neighbourhood Policy partner countries must be given a chance to participate in the Community programmes and agencies,” said the Head of Lithuanian Diplomacy.

According to Foreign Minister Vaitiekūnas, if the Member States agree to endorse the European Neighbourhood Policy at the European Council meeting in June, the EU’s eastern neighbours will be offered a possibility for better integration into the EU’s internal market.

Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs said that Lithuania would agree with the inclusion of Belarus in the European Neighbourhood Policy, only if Belarus’ concrete actions proved its readiness to step towards democracy.

The Minister and EU ambassadors discussed important issues of EU cooperation with the Kaliningrad Region. Mr. Vaitiekūnas expressed hope that German EU Presidency would support Lithuania’s and Russia’s striving to avoid imposing visa fee on the residents of the Kaliningrad Region travelling to Lithuania  and Lithuanian citizens travelling to Kaliningrad.

The Minister said that Lithuania was concerned about operation of the oil pipeline “Druzhba”. The number of hints that oil deliveries through this pipeline shall not be resumed is growing. This issue has been put on the EU-Russia agenda.

During the meeting with the ambassadors the Minister also discussed important issues of energy policy concerning Lithuania, the Baltic Sea Region and all the EU Member States. The Minister presented a high-level conference on energy issues, which is to be organised by Lithuania and Poland in Vilnius this year.