The EU-Central Africa Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) for trade and development between the EU and Cameroon will enter into force in the coming days following the recent ratification of the agreement by Cameroon. This 'interim' agreement will provide a sustainable guarantee of free access to the European market for any product originating in Cameroon and will foster an increase in trade and the diversification of Cameroon's economic activities.

On 24-25 July, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius visited Minsk, where he met with the Prime Minister of Belarus Mikhail Myasnikovich and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Vladimir Makei. The officials explored the most important issues related to the bilateral cooperation between Lithuania and Belarus, the EU-Belarus relations and the participation of Belarus in the Eastern Partnership programme. During the visit, L.Linkevičius also met with representatives of the country's civil society.

A free-trade agreement with the US has the potential to boost the European economy with billions, but this should not come at the expense of consumers or workers. Last week the sixth round of negotiation of the so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) took place. We spoke to Bernd Lange, a German member of the S&D group who is the chair of the international trade committee, about the agreement and other upcoming challenges for the committee.

The Lithuanian Seimas has closed its fourth regular session which began on 10 March 2014. During the session, Members of the Seimas convened to 51 plenary sittings and adopted over 300 legislative acts. The session was extended until 17 July 2014 due to the solemn sitting held on 12 July 2014 when Dalia Grybauskaite, President of the Republic of Lithuania, was sworn in for the second term of office. After the Government returned its mandate to the re-elected President, the Seimas nominated its candidature for the Prime Minister, the Office of the Seimas says in a statement.

New opportunities for European businesses, affordable energy bills for consumers, increased energy security through a significant reduction of natural gas imports and a positive impact on the environment: these are some of the expected benefits of the energy efficiency target for 2030 put forward today by the European Commission in a Communication. The proposed target of 30 % builds on the achievements already reached: new buildings use half the energy they did in the 1980s and industry is about 19% less energy intensive than in 2001.

Saulius Girdauskas, Vladislovas Kondratovicius and Arijandas Sliupas - all the three Deputy Ministers of Transport and Communications - have been reappointed to their offices.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė went to Warsaw, on 22 July, for a special meeting of the presidents of the Baltic States, the Visegrad Group countries (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary), Bulgaria, and Romania.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė extended congratulations to King Philippe of the Belgians on national day.

Jean-Claude Juncker was elected president of the European Commission on Tuesday 15 July, during the second plenary of the new term. It's the first time that Parliament has elected the candidate proposed by member state leaders based on the results of the European elections. Members also called for more transparency in the EU-US trade talks, gave Lithuania the go ahead to join the euro zone and approved four new commissioners. Read on and discover the highlights of the 14-17 July plenary session.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė is in Brussels for a special meeting of the European Council where EU leaders addressed the situation in Ukraine and in the Middles East.