On April 11, Rukla, soldiers of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Algirdas Mechanised Infantry Battalion and their counterparts of the German rotational forces familiarised with each other equipment and weaponry and Lithuanian troops showed the Germans around the location of their deployment and service in Lithuania. The German unit formed by the 291st Infantry Battalion of the Franco-German Brigade were welcomed by Commander Mechanised Infantry Brigade Iron Wolf Colonel Mindaugas Steponavičius.

UK bank Barclays is opening Rise Vilnius, a physical space and virtual community for innovation, this coming summer, the business daily Verslo Zinios reported on April 14th.

Parliament gave its green light for €100 million in EU emergency aid for refugees within the EU and €2 million to hire new staff for the EU law enforcement agency EUROPOL’s European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC), in a vote on Wednesday. Given the urgency of these measures, MEPs fast-tracked their approval of the funds, in the first draft amending budget of 2016. The procedure was completed in just over a month.

The terrorist attacks in Brussels on 22 March showed the need for better cooperation in the fight against terrorism in Europe. In the wake of these events, MEPs debate counter-terrorism strategies with Commission and Council representatives in plenary on Tuesday 12 April.

Would learning about the EU at school help to better understand what it is really all about? On Monday 11 April MEPs debate a non-legislative report calling on member states to have schools teach more about European issues to enable people to better engage with the EU. They will vote on it the following day. We spoke to report author Damian Drăghici, a Romanian member of the S&D group, ahead of the debate.

The European Commission managed its 2014 EU budget funds according to the rules, so Parliament should grant it a 'discharge' (i.e. approval), for that year, the Budgetary Control Committee said on Thursday. Parliament's own management of EU funds in 2014 was also approved, in a separate vote.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė met with the initiators of a unique project carried out in Lithuania and Germany to support the rescuers of Jews. The project was launched at the initiative of the Order of Malta and the Lithuanian Jewish community.

Tez Tour, one of Lithuania's largest tour operators that took 80,000 tourists from Lithuania last year, is starting to organize inbound tourism and will offer trips to Lithuania abroad, planning to bring in about 5,000 foreign tourists over the first year.

The terrorist attacks in Brussels on 22 March showed the need for better cooperation on counterterrorism in Europe. Parliament has been working for years on legislation to facilitate a common response, with joint measures and better information sharing.

A group of public figures aiming to submit a set of alcohol-restricting amendments to the Lithuanian parliament maintain they have collected in a few weeks 50,000 signatures, the number needed for lawmakers to address the bills.