"This morning, the Foreign Minister [Titus Corlatean] discussed over phone with the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, to clarify the situation ensued yesterday after the rather awkwardly worded statements by the this country's Permanent Representative to Brussels. (...) Minister Linas Linkevičius reaffirmed the support for Romania and Bulgaria's Schengen accession and the idea was also unequivocally voiced that the subject remains a priority on the agenda of the forthcoming Lithuanian EU [rotating] Presidency. Practically, the full support was reaffirmed without a shred of doubt, as in the message conveyed to the Romanian Foreign Minister during his Baltic tour and in Lithuania in particular," Romanian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Brandusa Predescu told a press briefing.
Lithuania's Permanent Representative to the European Union, Raimundas Karoblis, estimated that Romania and Bulgaria's Schengen accession may not be among the priorities of the half-year Lithuanian EU Council Presidency which starts on July 1, Bulgaria's Novinite informed on Wednesday.
Speaking at a Brussels conference highlighting the priorities of Lithuania's term at the EU helm, Karoblis said, as cited by Euractiv, that it was "very difficult" to promise anything about "the difficult dossier of Bulgaria and Romania's bid to join Schengen."
