Lietuva in brief - 2012-04-24

  • 2012-04-25

Seimas Speaker Irena Degutiene said that Lithuania and Poland need to think about “restarting” their bilateral relationship, reports ELTA. This was said to Speaker of the Polish Senate Bogdan Borusewicz during their meeting in a renovated football stadium in Warsaw. Both leaders agreed to search for ways to “restart” bilateral relationships by drawing particular attention to parliamentary relations. Degutiene accepted an invitation from the Senate Speaker to participate in the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly’s session of Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine. She is currently attending the Conference of the Speakers of the Parliaments of the European Union held in Warsaw. Next week Degutiene is going to Berlin and Huttenfeld at the invitation of Norbert Lammert, president of the Budenstag.

Belarus is reducing the number of border guard troops on its border with the EU, reports ELTA. Exit border checks are to become less strict, while entry control procedures will be strengthened, Belarusian Charter 97 press center reports. Press secretary of the State Border Committee Alyaksandr Tishchanka said: “The matter is that the EU sanctions are aimed to hit big companies which make a substantial contribution to the budget of Belarus. How can it go without consequences? Maybe everyone got used to it when we put equal efforts on exit and entry control. But now we are going to cut our efforts to control exit from Belarus, in view of financial problems. This means we give the duty to control entry to the EU to our neighbors.” “We cannot say there won’t be a ‘hole’ on the border,” he said.