Lithuania assumed its maiden term running the rotating Presidency of the Council in the 2nd half of 2013 under difficult constraints: the country’s modest administrative capacities and the enormous time pressures brought on by the urgency of certain dossiers and the abbreviated term of the current Parliament, which ends in mid-April. Nevertheless, as assessed by Sonia Piedrafita and Vilde Renman in this new CEPS Commentary, substantial progress was made thanks to the perseverance and strenuous efforts by the Lithuanians. In the end, some 137 legal acts were adopted during its six-month term, including several highly sensitive and complex pieces of legislation. The overall success was only slightly marred by the haste with which a few agreements were negotiated.
Sonia Piedrafita is Research Fellow and Vilde Renman is a research stagiare in the Politics and Institutions programme at CEPS.
