VILNIUS - A working party is to be created to plan Lithuania's long-term participation in the EU, it has been confirmed.
Headed by the prime minister, the group will consist of official's from government, parliament, ministries and advisers to President Valdas Adamkus. The group's task will be to establish Lithuania's priorities, the Lietuvos Zinios daily reports.
The document produced by the working party is expected to be of use both for the country's top-ranking officials, and to communicate European strategy to the general population.
A member of the EU for three years already, Lithuania hitherto has no single document stating the key directions of its policy in the EU.
In the government's opinion, the time has come to have a single solid document. "We have grown up, we see what is going on and how and so we believe that it is time to prepare a document like that," the head of the work group, Deputy Governmental Chancellor for EU Affairs Alvydas Stancikas told the newspaper.
"There is a lot of bureaucracy, the documents are voluminous, they are difficult to understand, we want to make everything clearer and simpler," Stancikas maintained.
It remains to be decided how the document will look and what areas it will cover, or to which extent. However, several cornerstone aspects of the document are already clear. "We all know that we care about energy matters, we seek to ensure the merger of our and EU energy systems. We are likewise interested in transport links," Stancikas outlined.
The head of the group assures that there will be no priorities in the document that are new or have never been discussed by politicians. "That is no uprising or revolution. There are no ideas to put down something new that has never been talked about," Stancikas said.
Chairman of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee Justinas Karosas would like the document to include provisions on a single EU policy. "I think that if we talk about the most pressing matters with one voice, the result will be much better," the MP responded.
For his part, chairman of the parliamentary European Affairs Committee, Andrius Kubilius, hopes that the new document will answer the question of where precisely the country stands in relation to the new EU Constitutional Treaty and the political unification of the community. "Relations with Russia are very important as well. We must seek that the policy of dealing with this country is dictated by all members of the Community rather than just several major powers in the EU," Kubilius said.
