Abstract
From 1 July 2013 the Republic of Lithuania will start its first presidency
of the Council of the European Union. Since the Treaty of Lisbon came
into force, Lithuania will participate in the third trio-presidency. It will also
be the fifth presidency of a member state that joined the European Union
in 2004. The subject matter of the six-month research, the results of which
are presented in the present work, was Lithuania’s preparation for its first
presidency of the Council and the course of research was determined by the
following research questions: In what way will the changes introduced to the
European Union system of institutions by the Treaty of Lisbon as well as
the practice of former presidencies influence the Lithuanian presidency? In
what way will the preparation to presidency influence the Europeanization of
the Lithuanian administration and the system of the European policy coordination?
How does the Lithuanian government publicize the approaching
presidency? Are there any working meetings between Poland and Lithuania
in order to exchange information about good practices? What may be the
priorities of the Lithuanian presidency? What can affect them? Moreover,
we asked the following questions regarding priorities: To what extent can
Lithuania use the presidency of the Council to promote and satisfy its own
interests at the European level? What will be the relationship between the
European Union and national interests? Which countries, especially Baltic
ones, will Lithuania cooperate with in the priority areas? Having taken into
account the preparations to presidency so far, is it possible to predict if the
Lithuanian presidency will be reliable, efficient and effective?