‘If we cannot fulfil our obligations, we cannot pay social benefits, we have frozen or cut pensions and promise to start paying them again only in 2012, then any calls of one sphere to increase spending are improper,’ said Grybauskaite to journalists on 1 September.  President was frank, ‘the crisis continues. And it means that there can be no privileges.’

On a press conference on 31 August, Rasa Jukneviciene, the Minister of Defence, calculated that only culture is less financed in Lithuania than defence.  The Ministry has calculated that an average Lithuanian per year spends more on alcohol than on defence and issued a warning that at the current rate Lithuania wont be able to keep its NATO obligations.  The defence spending has dropped to the levels of 2004 but the military obligations has increased.

During the press conference the Minister warned that the Lithuania’s mission to Afghanistan is at stake.  She said, ‘I am not aware how much the decision not to participate in the Afghanistan mission would cost to such a small NATO member as Lithuania, where the Alliance has an air-policing mission. In my opinion, it would be a political disaster, as in this situation NATO obligations to Lithuania would be reviewed, as well.’

In 2010 Lithuania, NATO member, allocated some 988 million Litas to defence, which accounted to only 0.9 per cent of countries GDP.  A NATO member state is obliged to allocate 2 per cent of their GDP.

She pointed out that the only sector to receive less money was culture.

“This press conference is for the public to explain to people that…Lithuania will be a very weak link in the NATO structure. And certainly the weak link in the chain would not have much moral right to defend our strong promise to NATO. We need to have at least the minimum amount of funding,” Jukneviciene’s spokesperson told journalists.

According to the minister, Lithuanian residents incorrectly hold the belief that the country’s army is very well funded.

The minister presented evidence that defense spending is at 2.9 percent of thegross domestic product. Recreation, culture and religion gets just 2.6 percent also.

The minister commented that other sectors of government had received funding from EU institutions, while defense spending had been left out.

Jukneviciene pointed out that both the NATO patrolling mission over Lithuanian skies and their mission in Afghanistan rely on funding.

National Security Adviser to the US President J. L. Jones upheld that the US Administration’s strategic interest in Europe entailed more dialogue and consultations on strategic matters between USA and Europe than ever before. The same applied to the Central and Eastern Europe receiving particular attention from the US. He confirmed the United States’ attempt to maintain an effective NATO’s nuclear deterrent as long as there were nuclear weapon nations. It is crucial for Lithuania that all the countries within NATO would be equally protected even in the context of ongoing discussions about circumstances of invoking the nuclear weapon.

The high US official and former Supreme Allied Commander Europe J. L. Jones noted there was a progress observed in Afghanistan and the US authorities expected that the allied forces could be withdrawn from the provinces where responsibility for national security and government could be transferred to Afghan capabilities. R.Juknevičienė briefed J. L. Jones about the Lithuanian peacekeepers’ mission and military cooperation with the US troops in the multinational operation in Afghanistan.

R. Juknevičienė and J. L. Jones touched upon relations with Russia. The US official upheld that a positive tendency was felt in the relations. According to the National Security Adviser to the US President, Russia is increasingly inclined to cooperate and reach agreements on specific questions, including sanctions against Iran.

Lithuanian Minister said the meeting proceeded in a friendly spirit and re-affirmed the US political leadership’s goodwilled and positive approach to ensuring security in the Central and Eastern Europe and for Lithuania.

After the session with the National Security Adviser to the US President Lithuanian Defence Minister met with the Chief of the National Guard Bureau Craig McKinley to whom aims and priorities of cooperation between the Baltic States and concrete projects were presented, and a discussion over the successful cooperation between the Pennsylvania Army National Guard and the National Defence System of Lithuania followed.

On the same day the Minister attended work dinner with Stephen Flangan, Vice President of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a member of the Group of Experts for the new NATO Strategic Concept. The meeting officials touched upon the process of developing the new NATO Strategic Concept, NATO agenda, and issues of policy of revising the US-Russian relations.

In a discussion at the Centre for Security Studies, the Atlantic Council, Minister R. Juknevičienė delivered remarks on the topic of cooperation between the Nordic-Baltic States and Poland. In the meeting multilateral projects and initiatives and perspectives of cooperation in the region were addressed.

In the evening the Minister participated in a reception at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in commemoration of the May 3rd Constitution Day.

A survey, requested by Alfa.lt news portal and Lietuvos Zinios daily, and conducted by Rinkos Tyrimu centras, also shows that the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats would get 17.8 percent of votes from those who would participate in election. Another 16.5 percent would give their vote for Lithuanian Social Democrats.

The Labour party is the favourite for 12.5 percent favouring the party, while Order and Justice party would receive 8.9 percent.

Two liberal parties, currently in the ruling coalition, Liberal and Centre Union and Liberal Movement, would get 4.4 and 3.8 percent of the votes respectively.

The Rising Nation party would receive only 1.6 percent of the votes. Some 25.7 percent of people, who would vote in the election, have not made up their minds on their favourite political parties yet.

Respondents of the poll were asked to evaluate the performance of different institutions and public figures in scale 1 to 10, where 10 represents the best performance.

Dalia Grybauskaite, the president, receives the highest rate of 8.4 points, while Seimas Speaker Irena Degutiene gets 7.3 points. The leader of the social democrats and the head of the parliamentary opposition Algirdas Butkevicius receives 6 points.

The fourth in the ratings is transport and communications minister Eligijus Masiulis with 5.9 points. Rasa Jukneviciene, the minister of Defence, gets 5.7 points, which is equal with Viktor Uspaskich, currently a member of European Parliament and the leader of Labour party.

Prime minister Andrius Kubilius is among politicians of the worst performance, collecting only 3.4 points out of 10, while former Seimas speaker and the leader of Rising Nation party Arunas Valinskas gets 3.8. Culture minister Remigijus Vilkaitis receives 3.3 points, the leader of Polish Electoral Action Voldemar Tomasevski – 3.8 points, and the mayor of Vilnius Vilius Navickas – 3.9 points.

The same rating system helped evaluate the performance of the ministries: Foreign Affairs, National Defence, and Communications ministries received the best ratings of 6.1, 6.0, and 5.9 points respectively. The worst performing ministries, according to the interviewees, are Energy ministry (3.7), Health ministry (4.0), ministry of Justice (4.2), and the ministry of Social Security and Labour (4.2).

The president’s office performed the best out of 13 state institutions, while the Seimas was evaluated as the worst. People have also lost trust in Prosecutor’s Office, courts, and National Social Insurance institution.

1006 respondents were interviewed on April 13-21 by Rinkos Tyrimu Centras and Norstat at the request of Alfa.lt news portal and Lietuvos Zinios daily.

Please refer to Alfa.lt and Lietuvos Zinios when citing any figure or results from this survey.

The national defence minister said that she could not say calmly that the Lithuanian armed forces were prepared to defend the country taking into account the present circumstances. “The situation is not the most favourable one, the long-term lack of finance for the national defence system, a lot of propaganda saying that everything is alright and that we have ones of the strongest armed forces in the world have largely affected the national defence system. Add the crisis, cutbacks in finance and we are on the brink of an abyss,” Jukneviciene said.

The minister agreed with the position of Arvydas Anusauskas, head of the Seimas’ National Security and Defence Committee, that the ongoing situation might pose a threat to national security.”There is a lack of money to perform all functions. To compare with other states, Lithuania has the smallest army; there is a question whether we will reduce it even more. Soldiers receive lower pays, but we do not have money to ensure them a possibility of constant training, learning to defend their country,” Jukneviciene said.

The national defence minister noted that Lithuania had to abandon its defence attaches to Great Britain, Germany and France due to cut funding of representation offices, even though their presence was very important for communication with NATO.

According to Jukneviciene, Lithuania might not be able to be an Alliance member due to the constant reduction of funding. The minister emphasised that our country was reproached for that all the time. NATO member states are obliged to allocate 2 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to national defence. “The Estonians retain the level of 1.8 percent of GDP, Lithuania has dropped to 0.9 percent and approaches 0.8 percent of GDP, which means that soon we will be unable to be NATO members. Our partnership is very important, solidarity is crucial, and if we do not make at least a minimum input to be ready to defend our country, NATO will soon raise a question whether we indeed want to be NATO members,” Jukneviciene warned.

The national defence minister said that she did not ask for additional money to national defence this year. However, the minister stressed that the state budget for next year should foresee that the funding for the national defence system would not be below 1 percent of GDP.

Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius promised to find ways to increase funding. “In the difficult financial situation, it was not very easy to increase funding in any way. Our common goal is to ensure that at least 1 percent of GDP would be reached, though the NATO standard is 2 percent,” Kubilius said.

The President met with the Ministry’s and the Armed Forces’ management to discuss the status of the national defence system and Lithuania’s military defence issues. The Chief of Defence presented to the President the assessment of military threats to Lithuania.

“Defence and security of our State depends directly on NATO and its commitments to Lithuania. We must therefore actively seek concrete guarantees from NATO to our country,” the President said.

According to the President, day-to-day defence planning is crucial in the armed forces; therefore, national plans setting out actions to be taken in response to various contingencies and various scenarios of military aggression against Lithuania should be regularly updated, in line with the available resources.

The President also stressed to the management of the Ministry and the Armed Forces the need not to lower the level of support that is currently provided by the armed forces to central and local governments in the form of search and rescue operations in extreme situations or in the case of natural disasters.

According to the President, in the light of reduced financing for national defence, priority should be given to maintaining the already trained and professional personnel.

President of the Republic of Lithuania is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the State.

Press Service of the President

„NATO membership gives us guarantee of collective defence; however, it would be an irresponsible attitude to rely solely on the allies and not to pay sufficient attention to national defence”, stressed R. Juknevičienė. „We have to do our „homework” first: step up national capabilities to prove our serious approach to security. We should not expect others commit to take risk for us if we are not properly ready ourselves”.

In the recent year leadership of the Ministry of National Defence shifted focus of the Armed Forces to combat training. Efforts are also made to find an effective system of reserve formation, to ensure sufficient recruitment of the professional military service personnel of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, and to create opportunities for citizens to prepare for defence of the country.

Fulfilment of the mentioned objectives was impeded by the economic crisis and financing for national defence reduced to as low as subsistence minimum, R. Juknevičienė said. Previous activity plans of the national defence system had to be reconsidered and stringent priorities set with great expedition to keep existing military capabilities from harm as much as possible and to continue with undertaken commitments to the allies.

Evaluating the key objectives of Lithuania’s NATO policy during the years of membership the Minister pointed out strong Alliance as a steadfast Lithuania’s priority. In the context of this objective Lithuania sought consecutive planning of the Alliance’s defence policy to be implemented and have NATO better prepared to respond to new security challenges, for example, in the energy security sector. Representatives of the National Defence System and other state institutions actively participated in discussions and rendered opinions regarding the NATO’s Strategic Concept which defines commitments of collectives defence, transatlantic relations and missions of the Alliance.

Lithuania also strengthened the Alliance and fulfilled its commitments by contributing to generation of NATO’s collective forces and NATO-led international operations. „Lithuania was forced to change its plans of participation in operations because of diminished budgeting. We have removed our forces from Kosovo to concentrate them in Afghanistan – the main Alliance’s present priority. Troops sent to Afghanistan are also the biggest contribution of the entire Lithuania to the Afghanistan operation”, the Minister said.

During the years of membership Lithuanian troops twice performed standby in the NATO Response Force, contractual commitments to generate international strategic airlift capabilities for the needs of NATO and other international organisations Lithuania is a member of were proceeded with, Memorandum of Understanding was signed on Lithuania’s participation in formation of a multinational logistic unit for NATO operations.

The Minister highlighted that one of the central goals of the latter years was to add visibility to NATO’s activity in the Baltic States, i.e. to prolong the Baltic Air-policing mission, to organise more military training events together with other NATO members, and other measures. Lithuania maintained close cooperation with its neighbours Latvia and Estonia to achieve that goal.

Press release from the Ministry of Defence of Republic of Lithuania

E. Lucas has maintained close relations with Lithuania ever since Restoration of Independence: he eye-witnessed March 11 in 1990, and was the first citizen of foreign state to receive visa of Lithuania No. 0001, the press release says. Twenty years ago he helped send the world a message about Lithuania and our country’s way to independence. Throughout the twenty years of Independence of Lithuania E. Lucas kept an eye on achievements, troubles, and challenges of our country, various political events were reflected in his publications.

One of publicist illustrations of E. Lucas’s interest in Middle and Eastern European policy – his book published in 2008 „The New Cold War” providing exhaustive analysis of security situation in post-Soviet space countries, including Lithuania, and studying perspectives of relations of Russia and Western states, the press release of the Ministry of Defence said.

During this meeting Lithuania’s Defence Minister Rasa Jukneviciene expressed her wish that three Baltic States to be included in future major defence cooperation projects in Northern Europe, the Ministry of Defence press release stated.

According to the press release the ministers discussed regional cooperation initiatives in Northern and Eastern Europe, with the main focus on Russia, NATO issues and Sweden’s presidency over the European Union.

It has to be noted that previously Lithuania emphasised its military cooperation with Poland and NATO partners.  It could be assumed that the military cooperation with Poland will be on the high agenda in Vilnius, but the latest Minister’s call for Baltic-Nordic cooperation could be regarded as a move to open a ‘new window’ in Lithuania’s strategic security planning.

At the session on Afghanistan stabilization the Minister Jukneviciene informed her counterparts about Lithuania’s plans to develop Afghan police training project with

other partners in Afghanistan’s Ghor province where Lithuania heads a Provincial Reconstruction Team, the press release says.

At the end of the meeting, the Nordic and Baltic defence ministers issued a joint communiqué on Nordic and Baltic participation in the mission in Afghanistan.

The next meeting of Nordic and Baltic defence ministers is scheduled to take place in Norway next autumn.