The ministry deems it necessary to highlight the following points. According to reassurances that repeatedly reached Moscow from Vilnius and Brussels alike, Lithuania joining the European Union promised to improve its contacts with Russia. Meanwhile, the letter and the spirit of the parliamentary resolution prove just the opposite.
As high-level official Lithuanian spokesmen were reassuring Russia, Lithuania pledged to arrange Russian transits to and from the exclave on patterns Russia and the European Union would agree upon. Now, Lithuanian MPs are, in fact, out to quash Russian-EU understandings of 2002 concerning a visa-free through train. The same concerns further expert achievements on the project, and understandings fixed in a joint statement of April 27 on EU enlargement and Russian-EU relations.
Lithuanian spokesmen repeatedly pointed out the importance their country was attaching to the category of sovereignty.
As it appears now, remarks the ministry, Lithuanian MPs are shrugging off other countries' right to guarantee their own sovereignty. It is hard, otherwise, to explain a point in the resolution which calls Russia to share with the EU responsibilities for the exclave's future. The resolution also expresses disagreement with a memorandum on Kaliningrad transits, which Russia offered to the European Commission last May.
It often happens in trying situation, the Lithuanian Sejmas (parliament) again recurs to a vocabulary that smacks of a negative reappraisal of the past. Thus, Russia has never recurred to the word "corridor" in negotiations on Kaliningrad transits. Just as before, it is convinced of a chance to settle the issue in a way that would take into due consideration Lithuanian sovereignty and Russian national interests alike.
As Lithuanian MPs allege, the Russian view of the Kaliningrad Region's progress does not allow to efficiently settle its social and economic problems. The ministerial commentary 'eaves the point "on their conscience".
Last but not least comes the indicative day on which the Sejmas made its resolution. Russia prepares hearings in the State Duma, parliament's lower house, on ratifying a protocol to spread the Russia-EU partnership and cooperation agreement on the new European Union countries. Russian executives are interested in those hearings to be as fruitful as possible. Lithuania appears to desire just the opposite, judging by the enthusiasm displayed on the resolution by spokesmen of political parties on the ruling coalition, the Foreign Ministry caustically remarks.
