Friday, July 12, Vilnius - President Dalia Grybauskaitė together with German President Joachim Gauck, currently on a state visit to Lithuania, opened a Lithuanian-German business forum. The event which brought together almost 50 business and government representatives from both countries featured a discussion on the prospects of cooperation between Lithuania and Germany.

More or less Europe, austerity vs investment and how to tackle further enlargement of the EU – there is plenty for Martin Callanan, a British member of the ECR group, and Rebecca Harms, a German member of the Green group, to disagree about. Our Facebook fans found out more about their differences during a chat on 9 July with the two political group leaders when they could not only ask about the future of Europe, but also about topical issues such as the Prism scandal.

The Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius argues that Swedish study on the integration of European Union electricity networks will not be a determinant in making a decision about Visaginas nuclear plant construction.

On 9 July, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius presenting the priorities of the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the field of enlargement at the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET) of the European Parliament stressed that EU enlargement had to continue, while progress made by countries on their path to EU membership would depend on individual merits.

Tuesday, July 9, Vilnius - On Thursday, July 11, at 10 a.m., President Dalia Grybauskaitė will meet with Joachim Gauck, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, arriving on a state visit to Lithuania at the invitation of Lithuania's President. It is the third state visit by a foreign head of state to Lithuania this year.

The following is a summary of the priorities of the Lithuanian Council Presidency outlined to the different parliamentary committees by Lithuanian ministers this week, from 8 to 12 July. This text is going to be updated daily

Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius met with the Macedonian Prime minister Nikola Gruevski to discuss the Lithuanian presidency of the EU Council, the Macedonian progress in implementing internal reforms and further integration into the EU and NATO, bilateral relations. The meeting happened on 8th of July in Vilnius.

Friday, July 5, Vilnius - President Dalia Grybauskaitė held a meeting with the President of the European Commission (EC), José Manuel Barroso, who arrived on an official visit to Lithuania. The meeting centered on key priorities of the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Croatia was welcomed as the 28th member state in an another eventful plenary, while Lithuania replaced Ireland at the helm of the European Union. Parliament voted in favour of Latvia joining the eurozone, gave the green light to a political deal on the EU's long-term budget and selected Emily O'Reilly as the first woman to be EU ombudsman. Other hot topics included Hungary, Bulgaria and Prism, while Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas finally picked up his 2010 Sakharov Prize in person.