Brussels, 28/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission and the Lithuanian Finance Minister, Dalia Grybauskaite, signed a financing memorandum on Friday in Vilnius whereby the EU will grant EUR 12 million to Lithuania in 2003 for setting in place the system for regulating transit through its territory between the enclave of Kaliningrad and the rest of Russia. Several trilateral meetings (EU, Russia and Lithuania) will be held in March, so that the system is set in place by 1 July this year. This amount, taken from the PHARE programme, must allow Lithuania to make the transit facilitation documents (TFD) available and to ensure safe control of its borders and trains in transit through its territory. As agreed during the EU/Russia Summit in November 2002, and in order to allow Lithuania to respect the Schengen acquis once it becomes a member of the EU (in 2004), the EU has undertaken to fully finance the additional cost linked to transit between Kaliningrad and Russia (see EUROPE of 13 November), estimated at EUR 50 million. The European Commission has made the political pledge to provide Lithuania with the additional EUR 38 million over coming years.