Today the Minister of the Interior Raimundas Palaitis met the Ambassador of the Republic of Austria to Lithuania J. E. Helmut Koller. During this meeting, the Ambassador gave an official invitation of the Interior Minister of Austria Maria Fekter to take part at the International Conference on fighting against terrorism and corruption to be held on 2–3 September in Vienna. During this Conference, the International Anticorruption Academy will be opened as well.

Today, the Minister of the Interior Mr. Raimundas Palaitis and the Minister of Regional Development of the Russian Federation Mr. Viktor Basargin have signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania and the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation on Interregional and Cross-border Cooperation. The Memorandum ensures the mutual exchange of latest information on legal issues and experience in developing and implementing regional policy, by attracting investments into certain regions. Moreover, it declares the assistance in promoting business relations between Lithuanian and Russian regional companies and other spheres of cooperation.

In a two-day meeting the Minister of the Interior Raimundas Palaitis and Russian Federation (RF) Minister of Regional Development Viktor Basargin discussed the prospects and priorities of interregional cooperation between Lithuania and Russia. One of the key projects discussed was the construction of the bridge across Nemunas between Panemunė and Sovetskas and the development of the access to it. “Panemunė border checkpoint is one of the sore points of the Lithuanian border system – the Queen Louise (Karalienė Luiza) bridge is in a bad condition; it’s too narrow for the present car traffic, which causes trouble both for the drivers crossing the border and for the dwellers of the village.

With authorization of the Minister of the Interior Raimundas Palaitis, Mindaugas Ladiga has taken office as the Viceminister of the Interior. The new Viceminister is going to supervise the sphere of execution of public safety policies and to coordinate the work of the statutory institutions. For long years M. Ladiga had been working in the National Security department. For a long while his work also concerned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: M. Ladiga was the Second Secretary in the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Russian Federation, worked as an advisor in the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Ukraine and, before taking office at the Ministry of the Interior, he worked as an advisor in the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in the Republic of Belarus.

Today the Ministry of the Interior (MI) was visited by the representatives of the Republic of Romania Ministry of the Interior and Romanian Emigration Bureau, with the purpose of getting acquainted with Lithuania’s experience of administrating the European Return Fund (ERF) as well as with the control system and the audit strategy of the fund. According the head of the European Union Aid Management division Daiva Rancevičienė, who had coordinated the visit, such visits with a purpose of sharing the experience are one of the measures ERF takes to spread good practice and to improve the functioning of the fund to maximize the benefits for the target groups.