Caspian Energy (CE):  Your Excellency, which tasks is the new governmental cabinet of Lithuania facing? 

Algirdas Butkevičius, Prime Minister of the Republic of Lithuania:  Having started its work a year and a half ago, the Cabinet of Ministers continued in office after the presidential elections. The country has observed steadily declining unemployment rate, while the average wage increased by 6.2 per cent. And it has been the largest wage growth over the past five years. 

Yet Lithuania’s true strength lies in the regions, which call for many more efforts and attention, which we will continue to deliver in supporting investments accounting for billions of litas. 

The sixteenth Government took up the challenge to bring down energy prices and strengthen Lithuania’s energy independence. 

Timely decisions taken at the end of 2013 managed to tame the ramping electricity and gas prices. The resumed negotiations with Russia’s Gazprom also turned out to be beneficial for our consumers: as of 1 July, household consumers’ natural gas bills came down on average by 20 per cent. With the acquisition of Gazprom and E.ON owned shares, we secured state control over strategic enterprises, operating in transportation and sale of natural gas. We will continue programmes for renovating apartment houses under a new model, heat sector transformation, biofuels and others, which will help modernize the Lithuanian energy and reduce consumer prices.

As regards our social obligations, we are proud to have brought down youth unemployment by 4.8 percentage points over the last year, which turns out to be among the best indicators across the European Union. We will continue building favourable environment for businesses and investments, especially innovative technologies. We will look for new markets for our exports.

A little more than a year ago, we announced our ambition to introduce the euro in 2015. And the ambition will soon become a reality, without any doubts whatsoever.