News

On 6 November, the delegation led by Undersecretary of the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Darius Jurgelevičius participated at the 113th session of the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Committee of Ministers in Chisinau (Moldova). At the session, much attention was given to reinforcement of cooperation between the CoE and the European Union (EU) as well as to holding the 3rd Council of Europe Summit. At the session, proposals for guaranteeing the long-term effectiveness of the European Court of Human Rights and other action of the CoE in the fight against trafficking in human beings and terrorism were also discussed. In his speech delivered at the 113 session, MFA Undersecretary Darius Jurgelevičius pronounced for the strengthening of the CoE-EU relations, while particularly accentuating that the CoE by its programmes of human rights and democracy enforcement as well cross-border cooperation in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Caucasus could perfectly complement the EU New Neighbourhood Initiative. The MFA Undersecretary affirmed that Lithuania would continue the initiatives of regional cooperation with the view to transferring its experience to the new democracies. At this CoE Committee of Ministers’ session, the Chisinau Political Declaration on Transfrontier and Interterritorial Cooperation between States in South-Eastern Europe was adopted as a continuation of the Vilnius Declaration on the Regional Cooperation issued by the 110th Committee of Minister’s session. At the end of the session, Moldova, which chaired the CoE Committee of Ministers the last semester, transferred the chairmanship to the Netherlands, which will hold it until May 2004.