On 10 July President Dalia Grybauskaitė met with the Lithuanian ambassadors and heads of the diplomatic missions to the international organizations. Over ninety extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassadors of Lithuania, heads of consular missions and Ministry of Foreign Affairs gathered for a traditional annual meeting.

The President thanked the diplomats for a decade of joint work in defending the interests of Lithuania and its people abroad, developing bilateral relations with other countries, bringing together allies and international support for our country’s goals, gaining ground in the European Union, NATO, the United Nations and other organizations, becoming a fully-fledged member of the influential Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

On 9 July, the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Neris Germanas attended the OSCE Informal Ministerial Gathering in Slovakia's High Tatras. N. Germanas emphasized the need to ensure the effective activity of multilateral organizations, to clearly identify root causes of conflicts, and not to disregard violations of countries' international commitments in order to address today's grave security situation facing the OSCE region.

On 5 July, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius conferred the Foreign Ministry’s award of honor – Lithuania’s Diplomacy Star – on Faina Kukliansky, Chair of the Jewish (Litvak) Community of Lithuania.

F. Kukliansky has been awarded for her active role in preparing important international agreements, cooperation between the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Foreign Ministry, her personal contribution to the drafting, implementation of the Law on the Good Will Compensation, and the Community’s active participation in projects of Lithuanian diplomatic representations.

On 9 July Seimas legalized the registration of European political parties in Lithuania.

The amendments on the registration of European political parties with the Register of Legal Persons were backed by 86 Lithuanian lawmakers, with no objections and four abstentions.

According to the Ministry of Justice, conditions will be created for the newly-established European political parities to have its headquarters in Lithuania, for example.

With startup friendly local institutions, one of the most educated workforces in Europe and many worldwide success stories, Vilnius is Europe’s latest startup hub.

"In recent years, Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, has become a European startup hub thanks to some of the lowest tax rates in the European Union, a startup-friendly local government, and a lack of bureaucracy which means startup founders can register their business in just three days."

SPARK, a car sharing service which uses only electric cars was launched in Romania on July 10, adding to the growing number of alternative transport services in Bucharest. 

The company was founded in Lithuania in 2017 with Lithuanian and Bulgarian shareholding and has raised over EUR 1 million in investments.

As part of the plan to expand their operations and become an European front runner in cloud technology and methodology, Cloudeon has opened a Center of Excellence in Vilnius. The company plans to hire up to 20 people this year and double the size of the team next year.

Founded in Copenhagen, Cloudeon is the leading Danish cloud company that provides innovative technologies for businesses to accelerate and fully digitalise their potential. The client base consists of businesses from both the private and public sector including the Danish State Railways, Danish telecommunications company TDC Group as well as both international and Danish enterprise businesses. Cloudeon is a quadruple Microsoft Gold Partner and has recently also become a Microsoft Authorized Education Partner, thereby, expanding the company’s capacities to the education field with their Cloudeon Cloud Academy.

Innovative thinking and world-class infrastructure are two of the factors that put Lithuania at the forefront of new technologies such as ‘Mobility as a Service’ (MaaS).

Invest Lithuania's expert Arnoldas Dapkus explains what this innovation means for the future of transport.

"In Lithuania you’ll find the kind of people who are primed for change. There’s a young population who are used to shuffling through a whole range of mobility solutions to get to their destination. Add to that a political and business community that is future focused and committed to giving innovative and disruptive business what it needs to create tomorrow. With all these ingredients in place, the country is definitely on the road to becoming a hub for the development of MaaS solutions."

Let's meet on July 18 from 4 p.m. at Washington Square in Vilnius and celebrate Freedom together!

The event commemorates the anniversary of Sumner Welles Declaration by which in 1940 the USA have never acknowledged the occupation of the Baltic States by the USSR and believed that Lithuania must be free.

The National Art Gallery in Vilnius has marked the ten-year anniversary of its activity. On this important occasion that calls to review the past accomplishments and envision the future perspectives, NGA invites its visitors to an exclusive exhibition program with the slogan “Back to the Future 10”. It consists of two major projects: the renewed display of the museum’s collection of modern and contemporary Lithuanian art and the satellite exhibition “Sweet Sweat of the Future”. Both projects offer a new look at the history of art and inspire visions of the future.

Kaunas, together with other cities across Lithuania, has recently launched two interactive projects aimed at solo travellers. So, if you’re a fan of interwar modernist and art deco architecture, or an enthusiast of historical defence objects and military structures, both of the projects are exactly what you’ve been looking for. It’s the travel season, after all!

Lithuanian Interwar architecture project  is an interactive educational platform that connects Lithuanian interwar architecture and modern technologies.

584 km - the guide of defence and natural heritage allows one to explore historical objects and artefacts of World War II in their natural surroundings instead of seeing them behind the glass in museums.

On 1 July President Dalia Grybauskaitė and President Andrzej Duda of Poland issued a joint statement to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the Union of Lublin.

The Presidents commended the foresightedness of the predecessors to create the Commonwealth of Two Nations based on equal partnership and joint responsibility which was an inspiration for the whole Europe to integrate and build closer cooperation between states as the best answer to respond to internal and external threats.

On 2 July in Canada, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius met with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The meeting took place on the margins of the third Ukraine Reform Conference in Toronto.

L. Linkevičius and the President of Ukraine discussed the challenges Ukraine faced in implementing its reforms in the context of Russia's aggression, the illegal issuance of Russian passports to the residents of Donbas.

On 2 July, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius met with Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland. The Foreign Ministers discussed the strengthening of bilateral ties between Lithuania and Canada, and growing economic cooperation between the countries.

In Lithuania, a GovTech Lab will soon become operational seeking to help address problems of the public sector by means of innovative solutions. The initiative of the Ministry of the Economy and Innovation will offer a possibility for start-ups to test their technology with the public sector and also will facilitate the technology commercialisation.

Lithuania-based Trafi developed the Jelbi app for Berlin's public transportation agency. It helps Berlin to move towards a multimodal approach to transportation - a concept already successfully adopted in Lithuania.

This year’s Emerging Europe Leaders Awards have been fruitful for Lithuania. For the second year in a row, Invest Lithuania has been recognized as the best Investment Promotion Agency of the Year and Go Vilnius took the award for City FDI Promotion Strategy of the Year. 

Precisely 5 years have passed since the time when on 1 July 2014, the merger of all the Lithuanian airports into one company – Lithuanian Airports – was announced. The results show that the unification of Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga Airports has proven successful: from the merger up to now, Lithuanian Airports calculate a profit (EBITDA) which has increased by as many as 235 percent, continually rising return on property and million dividends to the state that have grown each year.

BBC Radio 3 episode Passing the music on explores the story of Lithuanian pianist and professor Sulamita Aronovsky. Sulamita was born in Kaunas and left to pursue her musical career to Moscow Conservatoire. Afterwards she came to teach in Royal Academy of Music in London and became the founder of the International London Piano competition.

Sulamita and Sara discuss the recent recovery of recordings the performer made for Lithuanian Radio 60 years ago and her plans to reinvigorate the London competition in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Music.

As Canada celebrates its birthday on 1 July, namely, the 152nd anniversary of the establishment of confederation, the Town Hall of Vilnius was lit up in colours of the Canadian flag. Vilnius city municipality and the Embassy of Lithuania in Canada congratulated Canadians, who are staying in Lithuania or live here, in an original manner.