OREANDA-NEWS. June 20, 2012. In Vilnius there was the Fifth Congress of Honorary Consuls Lithuania, and Vitaliy Antonov, the President of "Concern Galnaftogaz", Honorary Consul of Lithuania in Lviv, took part in it. In Vilnius he expressed the idea to launch a project that would help Ukraine to study the Lithuanian experience of EU integration.

Congress of Honorary Consuls is held in Lithuania on the initiative of Ministry of RL Foreign Affairs every four years. For the third time Vitaliy Antonov represented Ukraine at this event. Overall, this year's congress was attended by over 100 honorary consuls of RL worldwide.

On June, 12 Honorary Consuls met the President of RL Dalya Gribauskaite. In her speech the President stressed that Honorary Consuls are officials and responsible for development and expansion of friendly economic, cultural and scientific relations between Lithuania and state with an opened Honorary Consulate. The President thanked Honorary Consuls for the support and promotion of Lithuania and invited them to support the country during the presidency of Lithuania in EU in the second half of 2013. "Next year Lithuania will get a great responsibility to vote in European Union. Your contribution as representatives of our aim, priorities and objectives which we will implement during our presidency is very important. This is a great opportunity to promote Lithuania's name in the international space", – said Dalya Gribauskaite.

At meeting with the President of LR, Honorary Consul of Lithuania in Lviv, Vitaliy Antonov said: "The EU integration experience of Lithuania is very valuable for all countries of the former Soviet Union and especially for Ukraine. Our country has a clear policy of integration with the EU. I want to offer the project in which there would be collected and systematized all the experience of Lithuania, both positive and negative, towards EU integration. To make the right decisions, we need to have an objective understanding of the process".

Vitaliy Antonov said that Ukrainian-Lithuanian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko and filling stations network "OKKO" are ready to support this project.