Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius said that Moldova has great chances of signing next autumn the documents that are to be initialed in Vilnius this autumn and of obtaining a visa-free regime for the Moldovan travelers. Its chances are now bigger compared with other Eastern Partnership countries. The Lithuanian official made the statements in an interview for IPN News Agency that was published on July 1, 2013.

“Everything depends first of all on how Moldova meets all the conditions of the Visa Liberalization Action Plan. You are the only Eastern Partnership country that switched to the second plan implementation stage and that made considerable progress at the given stage. This makes us hope that everything will go well till the end. The decision on visa-free trips of the Moldovans in the EU will be taken by the Council of EU unanimously and, it is not a secret, that a lot of work is to be done in the name of this positive unanimous solution,” said the minister.

Asked about the possible risks and challenges in the process of achieving these goals, he stated that a lot depends on how the authorities and society in general manage the situation. “As regards the challenges, it is important to identify them as soon as possible and to neutralize them. In general, the way of preparing the Visa Liberalization Action Plan and until the real visa-free regime includes a number of stages, assessments and intermediary solutions. It happens often that the given process is covered by the media in a very simplistic way and thus it seems that the achievement of the goal is very close,” Linas Linkevicius said in the interview given to IPN.

Today, July 1, 2013, Lithuania takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union.