The 7th of May is a professional festival of the Lithuanian journalists. This year the Joint Technical Secretariat, which administers the EU funded cross-border cooperation (CBC) projects, where the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania acts as the Managing Authority, has decided to thank a Lithuanian journalist, which was interested in CBC most passionately. RŪTA LANKININKAITĖ, working as correspondent of the Lithuanian National Television in Southern Lithuania was nominated as the Journalist, who informs about the EU funded CBC most actively in 2010. 

Rūta has prepared quite a number of reports about joint Lithuanian, Polish, Russian and Belarusian projects for the main daily news programme „Panorama“ on the Lithuanian National Television. One can often meet her in the project events in Lithuania and the neighbouring countries.

When asked, why is she interested in CBC projects, Rūta gives the common history, rivers and lakes and common problems of Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Belarus as the main reason. This makes CBC projects a great opportunity to work together and use the EU funding effectively.

Rūta is pleased that the Lithuanian partners act as lead partners quite often. They manage to prepare the application, administer the projects and teach foreign partners. She is especially interested in ecological, touristic and youth-aimed education projects.

A small advice from Rūta to the project implementers: when contacting the journalists the information about the project must be provided in common understandable language, it must succinctly state what is being done, how much money is given by the EU and what is the partners' input. And the most important thing is to point out what use does the project have for a town, region or a country.

All CBC programmes in Lithuania: www.esbendradabiavimas.lt.