Parliamentary responses to radical change in the EU's eastern neighbourhood, driven by Russian aggression in Ukraine but also by EU association deals with Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, will be debated by MEPs and Eastern Partnership countries' MPs at the fourth ordinary session of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly in Yerevan, Armenia, this week.

During a meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council in Brussels on Thursday, ministers agreed to strengthen surveillance at external borders and to reinforce the resources and the operational capacities of FRONTEX.

The Venezuelan authorities must immediately release all peaceful protesters, students and opposition leaders arbitrarily detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression and fundamental rights, Parliament said in a vote on Thursday. The government must also put an end to the political persecution and repression of the democratic opposition, it added.

Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Andrius Krivas on his visit to Kyiv and Dnepropetrovsk on March 9-11 discussed Ukraine's security situation, the reform agenda and NATO-Ukraine cooperation.

Parliament passed three resolutions on Thursday: strongly condemning the practice of land grabbing in Tanzania; asking member states to take proactive action to counter the expansion of Da'esh beyond Syria and Iraq; and calling on all sides in South Sudan to form a transitional government of national unity.

On 9 March 2015, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius during his official visit to the United States met with US Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss strategic partnership of the two countries.

"The people of Ukraine have heard enough talk by the international community. The time has come to walk the talk. Russia has caused and sponsored this war, and it remains in Russia's hands to put an end to this war," said Lithuanian Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Raimonda Murmokaitė on March 6, at the UN Security Council Briefing convened at the request of Lithuania.

European Union members must work together to help solve problem matters in the bloc's southern and eastern neighborhoods, as the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said during the Interparliamentary Conference for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Common Security and Defense Policy.

Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf called for more education for girls and outlined her plans to make her country Ebola-free by 15 April in an interview on the occasion of her visit to the Parliament. On 4 March Johnson Sirleaf met EP President Martin Schulz and also participated in a meeting related to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly. She also found time to tell us about her country's battle against Ebola and her message for this year's International Women's Day.

The hostilities in the Middle East also affect the five million Palestine refugees living throughout Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories, with a risk of radicalisation as the region becomes more unstable. Pierre Krähenbühl, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), issued the warning when he addressed the EP's foreign affairs committee on 2 March. He also said the EU had a crucial role to play.