Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said struggling European economies cannot afford to wait further for agreement on the stalled EU budget beyond the end of Ireland's presidency in three weeks' time.
Starting a two-day trip to northern Europe, Mr Kenny said he had a "mixture of hope and belief" that EU minds were concentrating on reaching agreement on the seven-year multi-annual financial framework (MFF).
"This is an issue of collective responsibility with a direct impact on jobs and growth," he said in Vilnius after talks with the Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite.
“No political leader can be happy with 26 million unemployed (in Europe), this is not something leaders can shove aside as if it doesn’t exist. The MFF has a direct impact on that,” he said. “You cannot get access to funds to deal with that unless the MFF is in place.”
Ms Grybauskaite said she was confident the issue would be closed before Lithuania assumes the presidency of the European Council from Ireland on July 1st.
“For me it is not about a hope, it is not about a belief, it is about necessity and the direct responsibility of the member states and parliament to have an agreement,” said Ms Grybauskaite.
She pointed out that failure to reach agreement soon meant that EU funding to member states would not be allocated in time for 2014. “The better the Irish presidency performs, the better for Lithuania,” she added.
After their talks and a joint press conference, Mr Kenny met the Lithuanian prime minister Algirdas Butkevicius. This afternoon he flies north to Riga for talks with his Latvian counterpart, Valdis Dombrovskis and a call on President Andris Berzins.
Mr Kenny continues on to Helsinki to meet his Finnish counterpart Jyrki Katainen tomorrow, followed by an address to the Annual Economic Ideas Forum.
