On 14 November at the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis stressed that the EU’s support – closer political cooperation, economic integration and financial support – was especially necessary to the countries that had embarked on the path of democracy. The meeting focused on the situation in the EU’s Southern neighbours: Tunisia, Libya and Syria.

During the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels, at Lithuania’s initiative foreign ministers of eight EU member states signed a letter addressed to the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy Štefan Füle and Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström. The letter draws their attention to Georgia’s progress in implementing the EU recommendations for the preparation for the negotiations on the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, and for the opening of the visa dialogue. The European Commission is invited to open negotiations with Georgia on the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement before the end of this year, and to launch the visa dialogue with Georgia already in the beginning of 2012. The letter was signed by Foreign Ministers of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.

Source Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania