The declaration aims to draw the European Commission's attention to the importance of Via Carpatia for the whole Eastern and Southern Europe, the Lithuanian Transport and Communications Ministry said in a press release on Wednesday.
Masiulis says Lithuania will benefit from further development of the highway.
"Via Carpatia is a strategically important transport corridor connecting the Baltic Sea with the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea, and should therefore become an integral part of the TEN-T of the trans-European transport network," he said.
Via Carpatia is being implemented by Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Turkey and Ukraine. Latvia and Estonia have joined the project recently.
