European Parliament gave a lukewarm response to the European Commission's next steps for economic and monetary union on 23 May. Its resolution says full implementation of the governance rules already set up must take precedence over new proposals. It also says the Commission has not embedded enough democratic control into the new ideas and that tools are needed to help reforms and address social concerns.

Director General of the EC Home Affairs Directorate Stefano Manservisi after his two day visit to Lithuania expressed high estimation of the preparedness of the authorities as well as the expert level of the Ministry of the Interior for the upcoming Presidency of the EU Council.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė is attending a European Council meeting in Brussels. At their meeting, the heads of state and government have outlined guidelines for the EU internal and external policies in the energy sector, with a key focus on building the EU's internal energy market and on external energy policy, and discussed tools to lower high prices of energy resources.

The 2014 European Parliament elections should be held from 22 to 25 May, instead of 5-8 June, according to a draft decision endorsed by the full House on Tuesday. Bringing the elections forward would give the new Parliament more time to prepare for the election of the European Commission President in July 2014.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė will attend the European Council on May 22. At their meeting in Brussels, EU heads of state and government will discuss energy security and high prices for energy resources - a major challenge that the European Union faces today. In order to better protect the interests of European consumers, the EU's internal energy market must be reinforced and its external energy policies coordinated more closely.

An informal meeting of EU state and general secretaries was held in Vilnius; on this occasion, the Lithuanian delegates invited the European Union (EU) Member States to join efforts for the purposes of the Eastern partnership.

Today another judgment on famous case about removing signs with Polish street names from the Vilnius region houses was passed in Vilnius Court. The court dismissed the application of bailiff to punish the Director of Administration in Municipality of Vilnius region Lucyna Kotlovska.

Tomorrow, the Chairman of the Seimas Group for Inter-Parliamentary Relations with the Republic of Poland Michal Mackevič, Chairman of the Seimas Committee on Human Rights Leonard Talmont and Members of the Seimas Antanas Matulas and Mečislovas Zasčiurinskas are visiting Poland (Tricity-Hel), where the meeting of the chairmanship of the parliamentary Polish-Lithuanian group will take place.

At the invitation of Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, the foreign ministers of the Visegrad Group (V4) and Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries will get together in Krakow to discuss the Eastern Partnership and its November summit in Vilnius.

A joint meeting of the coalition factions took place in Vilnius earlier this week. During the meeting, the primary topic of discussion was the change of the tax system, designed to change the size of tax-free amount in order to reduce the tax burden on people with lower incomes and create more favourable conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises.