Europe Council Fears for Lithuania : Diplomacy: The 23-nation group expresses concern over possible military intervention by Moscow.

Foreign ministers of the 23-nation Council of Europe expressed deep concern Saturday about the possibility of Soviet military intervention in Lithuania, reacting to an appeal for world support by the Baltic republic.

But the ministers, concluding a two-day meeting here, did not pass any resolutions on the sensitive subject.

Portuguese Foreign Minister Joao de Deus Pinheiro, the current council president, said the Lithuanian issue did not come up for a vote. Deus Pinheiro nevertheless appealed to Moscow not to act rashly in Lithuania, which has declared its independence from the Soviet Union.

Deus Pinheiro added that he hopes the Lithuanian situation can be resolved through negotiations.

The foreign ministers, holding a special meeting to discuss Eastern Europe, also expressed concern over ethnic violence that has broken out elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

“We launch an urgent appeal to all parties concerned to exercise restraints, refrain from violence and seek peaceful solutions,” Deus Pinheiro said at a news conference.

Although no country was named specifically, the diplomat’s remarks were prompted by the situation in Romania, where ethnic violence has erupted against the Hungarian minority in Transylvania, council sources said.

Fears about possible Soviet armed action in Lithuania were expressed by several foreign ministers, sources said.

But the Council of Europe seemed leery of taking a stand on a matter not on the agenda, according to those attending closed meetings, because the foreign ministers were torn between supporting self-determination for Lithuania and the desire not to embarrass Moscow.

The European Council also expressed “great support” for an Austrian proposal to hold a special council ministerial meeting on the problems of migration in Europe.

Austria, as well as other nations hard-pressed by migrants, would like a better definition of political and economic refugees, diplomats said.

The discussions on minority problems in Eastern Europe, as part of talks about the political future of Europe, overshadowed conversations about German unification.

But West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher was on hand to reassure his fellow ministers that German unity poses no serious threat to the stability of the Council of Europe or the European Community.

He repeated similar statements made by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to the European Community representatives in Brussels on Friday.

Some European Community officials, including EC President Jacques Delors, have expressed concern that West German preoccupation with unity would delay Bonn’s enthusiasm for a single-market Europe, set to be in place by the end of 1992. But Deus Pinheiro told his news conference that the members fully support German unification.

The Council of Europe is composed of all of the Western European nations and has generally focused on human rights and political matters, while the 12-member European Community is mainly occupied with economic integration.

Although the European Community is a tightly restricted club, the Council of Europe opens its doors to all European nations that institute democratic regimes and observe human rights.

The council has been in the forefront of the search for ways to aid Eastern European nations in their attempt to shuck off communism and install democratic governments.

Hungary, Poland, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia currently have special guest status on the council; Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia have applied for such status, and Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia have formally asked for full membership.

Their applications are undergoing scrutiny to make sure, as Deus Pinheiro put it, that they meet the council’s standards of democracy.