On 9 February, the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Albinas Zananavičius met with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece Terens-Nikolaos Quick and discussed bilateral political relations between Lithuania and Greece, opportunities for promoting economic cooperation, issues related to the Western Balkans region, energy security, and migration.

At the end of January, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched the new update of the OECD Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI), which contains information on regulatory changes that affect trade in services in 44 countries. According to the document, Lithuania is among the top regulatory performers. The top ten countries with the most open markets for services trade are Latvia, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Lithuania, Denmark, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic.

From easier online shopping, to cutting CO2 emissions faster and the new composition of the Parliament,: check out our overview of the plenary session in Strasbourg in February.

During his working visit on 5-8 February, the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Neris Germanas, who was accompanied by the Ambassador Dalius Čekuolis, accredited two Honorary Consulates of Lithuania to Tunisia in Tunis and Sousse. The CEO of several companies Khaled Fourati will serve as Lithuania’s Honorary Consul in Tunis, while the Director of Swicorp in North Africa Majdi Chaabouni will head the Honorary Consulate of Lithuania in Sousse. During the ceremony, the Ambassador Čekuolis handed over exequaturs to the Honorary Consuls, permitting them to perform their official duties.

On 6 February, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Albania Ditmir Bushati, who is visiting Lithuania. The Foreign Ministers discussed possibilities for strengthening bilateral cooperation, Albania’s EU membership aspirations, the situation in the Western Balkans, important regional security and cooperation issues.

On February 5 Vice Minister of National Defence Vytautas Umbrasas discussed further prospects for regional and bilateral military cooperation at a meeting with Deputy Director General for International Relations and Strategy at the French Ministry of Defense Vice Admiral Hervé de Bonnaventure.

On 5 February in Vilnius, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius and the Deputy Secretary General of NATO Rose Gottemoeller discussed preparations for the upcoming meeting of heads of state and government of NATO member countries. Gottemoeller is visiting Lithuania on the occasion of the first anniversary of the deployment of the NATO enhanced forward presence battalion in Lithuania.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė, Croatia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Damir Krstičević, Dutch Minister of Defense Ank Bijleveld, German State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Defense Marcus Grübel and NATO's Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller discussed the strengthening of NATO’s defense and security at the Great Lithuanian Hetman Jonušas Radvila Training Regiment in Rukla.

The Commission launched the EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum with the support of the European Parliament, represented by Jakob von Weizsäcker responsible for the recent report on virtual currencies.

On January 29-30 a delegation of the Ministry of Defence of Armenia conducted a visit to the Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania. The guest delegation headed by Director of the Defence Policy Department of the Ministry of Defence of Armenia Levon Ayvazyan took part in bilateral security and defence consultations, exchanged information on the security situation in the Baltic Sea region and South Caucasus, defence policy of both countries, fight against information threats, and bilateral cooperation.