Brussels, 09/06/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Lithuanian Minister for the Economy, Mr. Valentinas Milaknis and the European Commission's Director General for Economic and Financial Affairs, Mr. Giovanni Ravasio, last week in Vilnius, signed the "joint assessment of medium-term economic policy priorities of the Republic of Lithuania" for the period up to 2005, in the framework of the pre-accession process. This document was prepared in collaboration between the Lithuanian administration and the Commission services. It outlines the economic policy measures judged necessary to accelerate the economic transformation of the country and prepare its accession to the EU. It contains a figured macro-economic scenario for the implementation of the described measures, and their progress will be regularly assessed in the framework of the "European agreement" between the two parties.
According to Mr. Ravasio, the strategy thus defined is "ambitious, but reasonable", the budgetary imbalance being a "urgent necessity." The Lithuanian Minister underlined that this strategy confirms the government's will to pursue the restructuring process in view of "fulfilling the Copenhagen economic criteria," and he expressed his confidence in the possibility of respecting the undertaking and maintaining the impetus, thus giving a new boost to the country's economy.
The strategy obviously bases itself on the country's situation (the Russian crisis showed that it is very sensitive to external shocks) and on the government's economic guidelines. The first priority is to reduce the public deficit, the objective being to return to 2.8% of GDP; all the economic policy will turn around this objective. The privatisation will continue and the role of the State in the economy will be further reduced; the structural reform of the financial sector will be completed. For energy, the closure of unit 1 of the Ignalina nuclear power station is confirmed, which would imply the restructuring of the sector. Agriculture will be increasingly orientated towards the market, taking into account the environmental requirements, with the help of the EU thanks to the ISPA and SAPARD programmes. The Bank of Lithuania intends to peg the Litas to the Euro during the second half of 2001, by maintaining parity; the currency reserves will cover the monetary base and the other Litas undertakings.
Lithuania is the ninth accession candidate with whom the Commission has supported a document of this kind, after Slovenia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia Estonia and Hungary.