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Ambassador of Kazakhstan: Lithuania as a Bridge to European Bodies

By Konstantin Ameliushkin

Interests of Kazakhstan and Lithuania within the sphere of energy are mutually complementary, thinks Kazakhstan Ambassador to Lithuania Galymzhan Koishybayev. "We are energy suppliers, and Lithuania is a consumer and a transiting state of this energy", - he underlines. He estimates the level of relations between the two states as “pretty high”. According to his words, Lithuania as the EU member can “play the role of a bridge between Kazakhstan and general European bodies”. Kazakhstan is the 9th biggest country in the world, its population is more than 15 million people. READ MORE

Turkish President: We don’t want anything other than EU membership

Turkey will not accept any new framework of relations to the EU except full membership, Turkish President Abdullah Gül told EurActiv in an exclusive interview. READ MORE

US blames EU for Turkey's eastward shift

By Ben Knight

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates stirred the ire of both the European Union and Turkey when he suggested that Turkey was moving east because it was being shut out from the EU. Critics say there is some truth to it. READ MORE

President Medvedev's Interview to "Wall Street Journal"

By Gregory L. White, Robert Thomson, Rebecca Blumenstein

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expressed doubts about the future of Europe’s common currency and said the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could threaten the survival of BP PLC. READ MORE

Is NATO to Blame for Russia's Afghan Heroin Problem?

By Simon Shuster

It had to be one of the weirdest displays the Russian president had ever seen. Laid out on a table were a mound of walnuts, a chess set, an old tire and an anatomically correct dummy — all stuffed with little baggies of imitation heroin. Titled "The Deadly Harvest," the exhibit was meant to show the clever ways smugglers have of getting Afghan heroin into Russia, which has become the world's largest consumer of opiates from Afghanistan since the U.S. began its war there in 2001. READ MORE

Russia's 'new' stance remains anti-West

By David J. Kramer

Ahead of Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Washington this week, a "leaked" Russian foreign policy document is causing some Russia watchers to wonder whether the Russian president is shifting his country toward a more positive, pro-Western stance. A careful read of the 18,000-word document does not support such wishful thinking. READ MORE

Poland Prepares for a Run-Off Vote

By Hilary Heuler

Poland's first round of presidential elections on Sunday resulted in the center-right candidate Bronislaw Komorowski beating the far-right's Jaroslaw Kaczynski by a slim margin. READ MORE

Kyrgyzstan Learns to Survive in Chaos

By Erica Marat

Amid corruption scandals and ongoing instability it is easy to write off Kyrgyzstan as a state destined to fail due to its dishonest political leaders and impoverished economy. However, despite the fact that the provisional government has not filled all its ministerial seats and faces numerous domestic challenges, there is a strong sense of normality in Kyrgyzstan’s daily life. As local NGO groups like to describe it: “despite troubled government, life continues in Bishkek.” Indeed, in the past two months Kyrgyzstan has changed from being a country where dynastic succession of state power was most likely to a place with free media and active civic engagement. READ MORE

Strategic decisions adopted by the European Council will help prevent crises in the future

President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė calls the decisions adopted by the European Council strategic and important for Lithuania and for the whole European Union. The Heads of States gathered in Brussels agreed that all Member States will perform stress tests on their banking systems in the effort to stabilise financial markets. According to President Dalia Grybauskaitė, testing in Lithuania will be performed by the central bank and the Ministry of Finance. READ MORE

Creating synergies, avoiding overlap key to strengthening work of OSCE and Council of Europe

The OSCE and the Council of Europe should strengthen co-operation and avoid overlap to promote security on the basis of democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights, the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe Minister Antonio Miloshoski, told the OSCE Permanent Council READ MORE