Brussels resumes payment of EU aid to Lithuania

"On 10 May, the European Commission sent a letter to Lithuania's institutions confirming that Lithuania had taken the necessary steps to satisfy the conditions set out by the Commission for the resumption of payments. The Commission will pay 163 million euros to Lithuania on the basis of payment requests made. The payments to Lithuania were interrupted on 10 February this year," Giedrius Siudikas, head of the press office at the European Commission Representation in Lithuania, told BNS.

In February, the Commission interrupted payments from the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Funds to Lithuania due to irregularities in the country's use of around 26 million litas (EUR 7.5 m) out of 2.8 billion litas in aid money in 2010. As a result of this, the payment of 163 million euros, which Lithuania applied for last December, was not made.

The EU's executive body said that its decision to interrupt payments for certain Lithuanian programs, which had an established error rate of 4.4 percent, higher than the acceptable 2 percent, was in keeping with high standards of financial auditing and control.

The Commission asked Lithuania to inform it about the steps taken to improve the situation. It received the latest information on 12 April.