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At a plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on July 3, President Dalia Grybauskaitė presented Lithuania's EU Presidency Program and key tasks and answered questions from members of the parliament. This event marks the official start of Lithuania's six-month Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The Lithuanian Presidency has set ambitious goals which are important for all European citizens. Over the next six months, Lithuania will have to negotiate more than 300 EU legislative acts that are critical to promoting the EU's long-term economic growth, reducing youth unemployment and energy prices, and ensuring more secure neighborhood.

"After suffering five years of economic hardship, people ask for quick results. This forces us to take a lot of decisions in a pretty short period of time, in order to open up new opportunities for our citizens. To this end, strong political will and coordinated action by all EU institutions and national governments are needed. Lithuania is ready to put all its effort into building a European consensus for a better, stronger, more united future together," the President said.

Speaking about the importance of urgent decisions, the President highlighted the unity of the Lithuanian people: "I represent a country who knows all too well the heavy price paid for making hard choices, but also one who understands the advantages that come from taking those difficult decisions when they need to be. The resolve shared by people right across my country now makes Lithuania's economy the fastest growing in Europe. I speak as representative of a country that draws its strength from unity," the President noted.

The President underlined the importance of reaching agreement among the EU member states in order to make the EU funds earmarked in the next financial perspective available already at the beginning of 2014. After reaching political agreement on the EU's multiannual budget, Lithuania will seek to rally all the parties involved and pass around 70 documents crucial for implementation of the budget on due time.

According to the President, the Single Market is the major economic success of the European Union. Therefore it is necessary to effectively exploit its potential and deliver well-functioning internal markets in energy, services and digital economy.

The President also noted that an integrated EU internal energy market, once implemented, will substantially reduce energy prices and improve the EU's overall competitiveness. It is estimated that if the EU becomes a fully integrated market in 2015, it could save as much as 35 billion euros a year in electricity costs.

On November 4 - 5, Vilnius will host the conference on completing the EU internal energy market where decisions on key European energy projects will be made.

The President also underscored the significance of the completion of the Single Digital Market. Two events will be dedicated to the digital market issues and IT development during Lithuanian EU Presidency - the European Council summit in October and the European research and innovation event (ICT 2013) to be held in early November in Vilnius.

Open Europe is Lithuania's third priority. During Lithuanian's EU Presidency talks on free trade agreements will be held with the Unites States and Japan, also seeking closer rapprochement between the EU and its Eastern partners. According to the President, those partners who have made their European choice must know that they are welcome, when they are ready, to join the EU family. There are high expectations that an association agreement with Ukraine will be signed as well as negotiations and initialing of relevant agreements with Moldova, Georgia and Armenia will be concluded during the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius in November.

The full text of Lithuania’s EU Presidency Programme can be downloaded here (1.7 Mb).