Brussels, 24/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - The Lithuanian government will chair the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2013, and its prime minister was in Brussels on Wednesday 24 April for a meeting with the European Commission.
Wanting a “credible” Europe, the Lithuanian PM, Algirdas Butkevicius, called for completion of the internal market for energy and the development of infrastructure to remove “energy islands”. He hoped the joint Baltic nuclear power plant at Visaginas would be operational by 2015 and said the Lithuanian government wants to diversify the gas market by building a gas pipeline in 2015 between Poland and Sweden.
The president of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso, welcomed the fact that Lithuania has reported full transposition of EU legislation to liberalise the energy industry in order to allow the full integration of the country into the single market. He said the recent energy deal between Baltic nations and Russia on an electricity grid could only be a temporary matter and pointed out the importance of the European summit in May on energy issues.
Ukraine. Butkevicius says that the signing of an EU-Ukraine association agreement might take place at a summit of Eastern Partnership countries in Vilnius in November. Barroso called on the Ukrainian authorities to demonstrate their good will and ability to undertake the economic, political and legal reforms they have committed themselves to. He said that the main determinant of whether an EU-Ukraine association agreement would be signed was Ukraine's attitude.
Lithuania will have its work cut out for it in the second half of this year, before the end of the current European Parliament in the spring of 2014. Financially, there will be much pressure to introduce the second plank of banking union (after the eurozone supervision system is introduced under the aegis of the ECB), namely the legislation on harmonisation of bank resolution systems and bail-ins. Barroso said that the crucial legislation currently under discussion would need to be finalised. That includes the multiannual financial framework for 2014-2020, the legislation for which needs to come into force in January 2014.
Lithuania planning to join euro in 2015. The president of the Commission welcomed the Lithuanian government's desire to join the euro in 2015 and promised the Commission's backing to this end. (MB/transl.fl)