In response to questions from members of the Parliament's International Trade Committee, Linkevičius said that the EU should appreciate its strategic partnership with the United States, and underlined the importance of EU-US talks on a free trade agreement.
"It's not very productive to talk over the media, making statements to each other, we really can ruin many things. I believe we should value our strategic partnership between the EU and US, knowing that there are problems, there were problems in the past, probably there will be problems in the future, but let's address there problems with responsibility, not destroying what was important," the Lithuanian foreign minister said.
Linkevičius also said he had many questions about the fact that information about the US spying in Europe was leaked to the media.
"As a former defense minister, if I may say so, I know these issues - the leakage of confidential information, how it's used, how it's misused, how it's used also for the purposes to create some kind of foggy situation which is not helpful sometimes," he said.
Following media reports that the United States not only collected large amounts of information on private phone calls and online activity but also spied on its allies, European officials launched consultations at the US Justice Department on Monday when the issue of actions of the US National Security Agency must have been possibly raised.
Meanwhile other officials launched ambitious talks on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement aimed to lift trade barriers between the two largest economies and help them overcome the financial crisis.
