Yesterday, on Monday, March 17 President Dalia Grybauskaitė congratulated, on behalf of the Lithuanian people and on her own behalf, President Michael D. Higgins of Ireland on the occasion of Ireland's national holiday - Saint Patrick's Day.

Today at 13.00 forms with the signatures supporting the presidential candidate Valdemar Tomaševski, leader of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania (EAPL), were submitted to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC). As many as 51 thousand voters supported Mr Tomaševski.

On 13th March boards with street names were torn away from several buildings owned by Lithuanian citizens of Polish nationality in Jašiūnai. Regarding this issue, the EAPL Member of the Seimas Leonard Talmont has issued a statement calling the state authorities to protect private properties.

The crisis in Ukraine and an update of EU data protection legislation were two of the main topics during the March plenary session in Strasbourg. MEPs also concluded the assessment of the Troika's work during the financial crisis and adopted tougher rules to fight money laundering. Meanwhile, the campaign for the European elections on 22-25 May is heating up as the political parties name their candidates.

On 13 March in Vilnius, the Vice-Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Vytautas Leškevičius and Rolandas Kriščiūnas met with Mart Laanemäe, Deputy Foreign Minister of Estonia.

With regard to the President's decree and following the Constitution, Lithuania's Parliament has ratified the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism.

At least six presidential candidates claim that they have collected the required number of signatures. Central Electoral Commission (CEC) will register a person as a candidate for the President of Lithuania if the person is supported by at least 20 thousand voters' signatures.

Lithuania's Seimas agreed with the Opposition of the Ukraine's Government that the decision of the parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea to announce the referendum on the status of Crimea was against the Ukraine's Constitution and that the results of the referendum were to be treated as illegal and void.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė met with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to discuss the situation in Ukraine and the EU's further steps to stop the escalation of the conflict. The meeting also focused on the need to ensure the work of international observer missions in Crimea.

At the end of December 2013 the Basic Regulations for the reformed Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) were published in the Official Journal, following their adoption by the European Parliament (EP) and the Council. This includes the regulations i) on Direct Payments, ii) the Common Market Organisation (CMO), iii) Rural Development and, iv) a Horizontal Regulation on the financing, management and monitoring of the CAP.