Enda Kenny in Lithuania and Latvia for presidency handover

With the Baltic white nights looming, Taoiseach Enda Kenny visited Vilnius and Riga yesterday, an Irish white knight for European bailouts, presidencies and reform.

Mr Kenny first headed to Lithuania — which takes inherits the European Council presidency from Ireland on July 1st — to outline Ireland's policy progress and unfinished business after six months at the reigns.

With three weeks left before the hand-over, Mr Kenny expressed a “hope and belief” that minds were concentrating on breaking the deadlock on agreeing the EU’s seven-year budget. Describing a budget deal as key to unlocking funds to help tackle Europe’s economic challenges, Mr Kenny said: “This is an issue of collective responsibility with a direct impact on jobs and growth.”

“No political leader can be happy with 26 million unemployed (in the EU), this is not something leaders can shove aside as if it does not exist,” he said.

Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite agreed that "the better the Irish presidency performs, the better for Lithuania".

“It is about necessity and the direct responsility of the member states and parliament to have an agreement,” said the president.

A former finance minister, EU budget commissioner and black belt in karate, she may need all of these skills to progress a record 563 dossiers in the EU’s legislative pipeline.

Like Ireland, Lithuania and Latvia experienced a dramatic two-digit economic contractions in the recent economic crisis. Deep reforms, public spending and wage cuts in both countries have aided a return to growth though the jobless rate remains stuck above 15 per cent.

In Riga, Latvian prime minister Valdis Dombrovskis was confident his country would receive an economic boost from its entry to the euro area — green-lighted on Thursday by EU institutions. "We had our own economic crisis without having the euro, so the euro is not the problem — it is a stable currency," he said.

Today in Helsinki, Mr Kenny meets his Finnish counterpart Jyrki Katainen.