He spoke to journalists after a meeting with European Parliament leader and the prime minister of the current EU Council presidency, Ireland, on Thursday. The EP vote on the 2014-2020 budget is expected next week, after Lithuania will have already taken over the presidency.
"I am delighted to announce that today we have a political agreement on the European Union's future budget," Barroso told Brussels journalists.
According to Lithuanian EU commissioner Algirdas Šemeta, even with the agreement in place, Lithuania will still have to do the difficult job of coordinating around 70 pieces of legislation allocating funds for individual programs.
Lithuania is taking over the EU's rotating six-month presidency on July 1.
"Without agreement on these programs, the perspective can't start working. Lithuania has a very important task of securing agreements on all those programs," he told Lithuanian journalists in Brussels.
Lithuania will not start from scratch because political agreement in some areas has already been reached, but heated discussions on some programs are still ongoing, Šemeta, EU commissioner for taxation and customs union, audit and anti-fraud, says.
"There are still areas where hot battles are raging over the legislation itself, and Lithuania will have to work hard to achieve victory, that is, agreement," he said.
Another difficult job for the Lithuanian EU presidency will be to lead negotiations on the EU banking reform, Šemeta says.
