Linkevičius (left) and SørensenOn 17 June in Vilnius, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius met with Claus Sørensen, Director-General of the Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection. The officials discussed Lithuania’s priorities for humanitarian aid: the setting up of the European Voluntary Humanitarian Aid Corps, strengthening the efficiency of humanitarian aid policies and the ability of communities and countries to handle a crisis.

The EU needs a constitution to face the crisis, keep the peace and safeguard the welfare of European citizens, Slovenian president Borut Pahor told MEPs during his visit to Parliament on Tuesday 11 June. In his speech in the plenary chamber, Mr Pahor laid out his vision for Europe's future, adding that any new constitutional project should be put to a referendum to ensure the necessary legitimacy.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė met with the President of the Swiss Confederation, Ueli Maurer, who arrived on an official visit to Lithuania. During their meeting, the Presidents discussed bilateral economic and cultural cooperation, EU-Swiss relations, and the priorities of Lithuania's upcoming Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

How do you get young people engaged with politics when many of them have become disillusioned due to youth unemployment reaching record highs across Europe? The League of Young Voters wants to make a difference by making more information about the EP elections available to them and ensuring that political parties and candidates focus on the issues that matter to young people. The initiative was launched on 30 May as a part of European Youth Week this week.

On Thursday, with the traditional visit before the Presidency in the EU President of the European Parliament (EP) Martin Schulz came to Lithuania together with the heads of EP factions, including Martin Callanan, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Group of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).

'During the spring session of the Lithuanian Seimas the EAPL managed to carry through some important initiatives: inter alia, get the approval of members for the legislative acts concerning the increasing of funding for local roads and for payments for the least-paid employees of budgetary institutions and the protection of the human life since the moment of conception,' the leader of the EAPL, Member of the European Parliament Valdemar Tomaševski has told at the beginning of the press conference in the Lithuanian Seimas.