Lithuania approves mechanism to tackle cross-border barriers

The Lithuanian government has approved a new mechanism to identify and coordinate solutions to legal and administrative problems arising in the country’s border regions, LRT reported, citing ELTA.

Under a resolution prepared by the Ministry of the Interior, Lithuania will implement the European Union’s BRIDGEforEU regulation. The interior minister will decide whether to establish a national cross-border coordination point or assign its functions to an existing institution.

The selected model is intended to operate as a one-stop shop, coordinating efforts to resolve cross-border problems and mediating between the people or organisations that raise them and the responsible state and municipal institutions.

The ministry said such problems are currently addressed in a fragmented way by different institutions and through different formats. There is no system for registering and coordinating identified cross-border barriers.

The mechanism could also help strengthen the resilience of border regions, the ministry said. Potential areas include military mobility, the compatibility of transport standards, and the interaction between civilian and military infrastructure.

Up to 119,900 euros in EU funding has been allocated for implementing BRIDGEforEU, while the national co-financing contribution will total 13,300 euros. The pilot project will run for 18 months.

Lithuania has cooperated with Latvia and Poland on cross-border issues for more than 25 years. Intergovernmental commissions address migration, border protection, civil protection, transport, infrastructure and other matters.

Lithuania currently has no centralised system for registering cross-border barriers, so no official statistics are collected on their scale.