Lietuva in brief - 2011-01-13

President Dalia Grybauskaite has written a letter to the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, and the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, urging them to look for ways to facilitate travel and a visa regime within the Schengen area for Belarusians, irrespective of any sanctions that might be imposed by the EU on the Belarusian administration, the presidential press service reports. The elections held in December of 2010 and the subsequent events in Belarus have demonstrated that the situation of human rights and democratic values in Belarus - an OSCE participating state and EU neighboring country - is among the most urgent issues of today. The European Union has been promoting the democratization of Belarus through different measures of cooperation and impact. We need to search for new forms of cooperation, says Grybauskaite.

Leader of the Order and Justice party Rolandas Paksas is considering setting up an independent working group on the implementation of the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in Lithuania, reports ELTA. “Looking at the wish of today’s authorities and some politicians to search for a variety of ways to delay the implementation of the ruling of the Strasbourg court as long as possible in Lithuania, and also having strong doubts as to whether the experts hired by the government will remain unbiased, I am considering the possibility of addressing international human rights legal experts and initiating setting up an international working group for the implementation of the court’s decision,” the politician said. Paksas said that after establishing the body, he would apply to the Lithuanian government, asking for its representative in the group.