Lithuania’s media is buzzing with 11 March celebrations of Lithuania’s twentieth year of Independence.  Some of the commentators mostly concentrated on the guests who were invited to the celebrations, who attended and who did not.  Many point out that Lithuania’s foreign policy under President Grybauskaite has suffered a  her attempts to redirect Lithuania’s energy from the Eastern European neighbours towards the largest European Union members states is not paying off.  Some suggest that this turn of  Lithuania’s our foreign policy, which was based on moral values to the pragmatic values, is a betrayal of our friends in the Eastern Europe.

The most appreciated critic of the new Lithuania’s foreign policy is the accomplished journalist of the Economist, Edward Lucas.  On his visit to Lithuania to celebrate 11 March and to collect a medal from the Minister of Defence of Lithuania he gave a few interviews expressing his concern of the new trends in Lithuania’s foreign policy.  He called Vilnius’s new turn the ‘Schreoderisation’ of Lithuania’s foreign policy.  For those who are not aware, term Schroderisation comes from former German Chancellor Gerhard Schreorder, who during the last weeks of his term in office made sure that the Nord Stream deal would be signed in Germany.  Only a few weeks after his resignation he accepted a position of the chairman of the board position in the Nord Stream AG.

Edward Lucas was quoted by BNS in Delfi.lt, “My worry is that you sacrifice some important values, sacrifice the principled support of democracy in the Russia’s near abroad, you don’t give the Russian democrats someone to believe in. Basically it’s some kind of Schroederisation in Lithuanian foreign policy and I think that’s the danger.”

Edward Lucas also expressed concerns about Lithuania’s changing policy towards Russia.  The Kremlin is playing a ‘divide and rule’ game with the Baltic states by taking turns punishing one Baltic state and befriending another at the same time.  The journalist said in the same interview, “Typically they have one Baltic state to be nasty to, one Baltic state they ignore and one Baltic state that they flatter. I think at the moment Lithuania has been flattered, Latvia has been ignored and Estonia is being punished.”

The newly appointed Lithuania’s Minister of Affairs Audronius Azubalis from the Conservative party said that Edward Lucas is mistaken, and the Lithuania’s change in rhetoric does not mean that Vilnius is changing its foreign policy.  On 15 March in a programme on Lithuania’s Public TV Channel Azubalis said, “The fact that the rhetoric has changed does not mean changes in politics. Does rhetoric determine policy? Definitely it does not. Specific steps, statements and attitudes determine policy. I don’t see any changes there. What I notice is an attempt to balance the relations between the East and the West, with a certain focus on Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe but we have not made a 180-degree alteration.”

In regards to Schroederization in Lithuanian foreign policy he also disagreed with Edward Lucas.  The Minster said, “I would not jump to such hasty conclusions, as Lucas did. At a meeting of the Community of Democracies on March 12, I told him regretfully that a political reviewer with such experience was making highly irresponsible accusations only because the president of Georgia was not invited. This is the only argument he could come up with.”

Mr Azubalis also responded to the criticism that all the large EU Member States, except Poland ,snubbed the 11 March celebrations.  He said, “This is only the second year of our attempts to explain to our colleagues and partners in the EU framework of our history in Central and Eastern Europe, the consequences of totalitarian regimes, and this is not necessarily accepted with joy. It is difficult to challenge stereotypes that exist in heads of politicians and societies”.

Lietuvos Rytas newspaper noted in its editorial on 16 March that it is one thing when such criticism comes from some of the Lithuanian commentators.  However, it is an entirely different situation when the acclaimed friend of Lithuania  expresses his doubts about the new direction of Lithuanian foreign policy .  The editorial concludes that this is especially strange when it happens during the Conservative party rule, when just until recently Edward Lucas’ book ‘The New Cold War’ was like the Bible to the party.