Lituanica

As the BNS informed the Lithuanian press is seen as having one of the highest levels of free press among Eastern European and post-Soviet countries and is even ahead of counterparts in some of European Union’s (EU) old-timer countries.

According to the BNS this finding was revealed by the Global Press Freedom Survey 2008 announced by US-based NGO Freedom House, promoting global development of freedom.

BNS pointed out that as shown in the survey, Lithuania together with the Czech Republic share the second and third places ,both countries were rated 18, among Central and Eastern Europe as well as former Soviet Union countries according to freedom of press. Estonia is a leader when it comes to freedom of press in this group of countries, and received the rating of 16 in the report.

The aforementioned countries, together with slightly lower rated Hungary, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Poland, made it to the ranks of nations, which enjoy free press.

The blog would like to represent you with analysis from Mr Vladimir Socor, from the Jamestown Foundation, on the latest meeting of the The New Friends of Georgia group in Lithuania.

The New Friends of Georgia group of countries conferred in an enlarged and upgraded format on September 13-14 in Vilnius. This meeting shows that a strong nucleus of eight countries has developed within the European Union and NATO (alongside the United States in the latter case), supporting an active policy by the two organizations in Europe’s East generally and toward Georgia in particular.

Initiated in 2005 in Tbilisi by the three Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria, the New Friends’ group has matured this year. Georgia’s Black Sea neighbours Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU, while the Czech Republic and Sweden have joined the New Friends of Georgia group.  The meeting in Vilnius was the first held at the level of ministers of foreign affairs in full format. The EU’s Special Representative for the South Caucasus, Peter Semneby, participated as an observer, while his Swedish compatriot, Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt, brought Sweden to the table for the first time.

Reviewing proposals prepared by Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the New Friends group of countries agreed to work jointly as well as in their national capacities to promote the following Euro-Atlantic and Georgian goals: 

Regional Security and Stability
Noting that Georgia’s security, democratic stability, and integrity constitute major European and Transatlantic interests, the group called for policies to be premised on that fact. Georgia’s internal reforms, “a successful example in the region and beyond,” substantiate Georgia’s aspirations to closer Euro-Atlantic ties.

Strengthening Georgia’s ties with NATO and the EU would contribute to regional security and also help stabilize Russia-Georgia relations, the group noted. NATO AgendaThe New Friends (except Sweden, which is not a NATO member) support Georgia’s goal to advance to a Membership Action Plan (MAP) at NATO’s summit in Romania in the spring of 2008.

Based on Georgia’s performance on military reforms and its troop contributions to allied missions, the group concluded that Georgia already forms a significant element in Euro-Atlantic security and is prepared for the MAP. The Abkhaz and South Ossetian secessionist conflicts must not be turned into “an inhibiting factor or an excuse” for temporizing on Georgia’s integration into NATO. No country outside NATO [read: Russia] has a right to veto the alliance’s decisions, the group noted, as an indirect reminder to several West European governments in the context of the MAP debate.

EU Neighbourhood Policy
The meeting called for adjusting the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) more closely to Georgia’s internal reform performance and to the EU’s own interests in the region. Facilitation of travel visas and access of Georgian exports to the EU are priority goals. The EU’s current visa policy toward Georgia offers easier access to Russian passport holders (from Abkhazia and South Ossetia as well as from Russia), as compared with Georgian passport holders.

This policy is “unfair and counterproductive, it undermines Georgia’s territorial integrity and European security interests,” the group observed. It called on the EU countries to give the European Commission a mandate to negotiate trade and visa facilitation agreements with Georgia. 

Unresolved Conflicts
In his intervention, Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Adrian Cioroianu noted the parallels between the unresolved conflicts in Georgia and Moldova. He underscored the common interests of Romania and Georgia in resolving those conflicts on the basis of Georgia’s and Moldova’s territorial integrity and, as part of that process, ensuring Russia’s compliance with the 1999 Istanbul agreements to fully withdraw Russian forces from Georgia and Moldova.

However, “Russia wants a new treaty [on conventional forces in Europe] that would consign Russia’s commitments to oblivion. Romania wants no foreign troops unlawfully stationed in its neighborhood, and we have a common interest with Georgia in this regard,” Cioroianu declared (Mediafax, September 14).

The Romanian minister announced his country’s full support for Georgia to advance to MAP at NATO’s Bucharest summit. Such support is procedurally important, as the summit’s host country significantly influences the event’s agenda.

Shortly before the Vilnius meeting, Georgia’s New Friends acted effectively as a group already at the EU’s meeting of foreign affairs ministers in Portugal on September 8-9. There, the group’s countries called on the European Commission to begin negotiations with Georgia on travel visas and trade and on the EU to adopt a stronger collective position toward Russia’s ongoing intrusions into Georgia’s air space.

The New Friends are stepping into a role vacated by the old group of “Friends of Georgia.” Formed a decade ago by the United States, Germany, Britain, and France, that group soon lost its effectiveness and ultimately its relevance by admitting Russia into its ranks and reinventing itself as the United Nations Secretary General’s Friends on Georgia.

From that group, only the United States consistently adheres to the original policy priority while the other three Western powers have (in varying degrees) relegated Georgia to lesser priority status in their policies.

The Vilnius meeting amounts to a political signal that a new centre of gravity has evolved within Euro-Atlantic organizations regarding policies in Europe’s eastern neighbourhood.  The United States and the New Friends of Georgia can together form a critical mass for shaping strategy and policy toward Georgia and in Europe’s East.Euro Asia Daily Monitor, September 17, 2007 — Volume 4, Issue 171

The largest Lithuanian daily Lietuvos Rytas on the 13 of September published its editorial on the Lithuanian Foreign Policy, which according the daily is loosing direction.  Have a look at one side of the debate taking in the Lithuanian media at the moment. Hence, what is the goal of Lithuanian foreign policy?

This unexpected question has arisen again this week during the annual congress of the Lithuanian diplomats in Vilnius.

The Lithuanian diplomats, President Valdas Adamkus, and other influential politicians were discussing the best possible ways to implement the foreign policy goals.

However, after paying attention to what was going on during the behind-the-scenes meetings, as well as to the official declarations by the state leaders, a blasphemous question arose: Does Lithuania indeed know what these goals are.

Last week, the president in a way outlined certain benchmarks for the changes in the country’s foreign policy.

He declared that it was necessary to continue the so-called Eastern policy. However, he stressed that it was important to pay more attention to the more active relations with the Western European countries.
A single declaration by the president perhaps would not be seen as a shift in the direction of the country’s foreign policy, if not for the fact that it sounded like an echo of the criticism the Lithuanian diplomats have been receiving so far.

There have been talks that Vilnius pays too much attention to such countries as Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, or Moldova, that it does not communicate enough, and that perhaps it is too cold in its friendship with the most powerful EU countries, such as Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.
Lithuania’s European Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite has even said that all Lithuania has managed is to have relations only with the “poor.”

This is why we could consider Adamkus’s strategic diplomatic goal as a certain new foreign policy vision: “The selected benchmarks are clear: as much Europe as possible in Lithuania and as much Lithuania as possible in Europe.”

It looks like this formulation will transform the previous idea proposed by the then acting President Arturas Paulauskas. The idea was that Lithuania would seek to become some kind of regional centre.
However, despite the fact that some of Lithuania’s achievements have been impressive, this idea has been seen, at least in the public domain, as a silly misunderstanding, rather than a thought-out foreign policy goal.

Perhaps this is why the Lithuanian foreign policy goals that have been mentioned this time are much more mundane.

“As much as possible of the strong, open, and democratic Europe beyond our eastern border and in the entire world, which should be built on the stable transatlantic foundation. Our goals are democracy, security, stability, and wellbeing,” the president said.

In other words, one of the main foreign policy goals of Lithuania, even if it is an EU and NATO member, remains the need to ensure a secure environment. And one would find it difficult to argue against that.
However, even when we seek this goal, it looks like the newly formulated Lithuanian foreign policy goals will be more pragmatic.

The goal is that, besides security, the Eastern policy would give Lithuania more tangible benefits.

“Lithuania’s Eastern policy has to give concrete dividends to our businessmen and our people. Looking back at our own road to the EU, whose widest segment was going through the Scandinavian countries, we can see that the Scandinavian investments in Lithuania won the businessmen from these countries considerable tangible benefits that grew several times. Such a model could and should be actively applied in our relations with Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia,” Adamkus explained.

Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas has also confirmed that the attitude of the country’s “wheelmen” with respect to foreign policy, at least on the level of ideas, has indeed changed.

I have stressed that our foreign policy should be more oriented toward solving domestic goals. There is a chance to focus foreign policy on solving domestic problems,” he said after meeting with the president last week.
By saying this, the minister has in a way outlined the main foreign policy goal of any country, obvious to anybody. This goal is the wellbeing of the country’s citizens. And all the rest are certain measures to achieve the goal.

However, in Lithuania, it seems that many persons still find it difficult to understand such a goal.

Our country’s diplomacy has indeed had many achievements, and these have been prominent achievements. Moreover, we have to admit that our foreign policy is far from being that sphere in Lithuania where we could find the most problems.

However, despite all that, it is still difficult to get rid of the thought that the aim of one policy or another is certainly far from seeking the wellbeing of the citizens.

I doubt anybody would challenge the fact that sometimes there are certain attempts to search for a certain niche for the country’s diplomacy. This happened with Lithuania’s aspiration to become a regional centre.

Sometimes our diplomacy is influenced by the wish to make a spectacle of ourselves. This was what happened when our country’s parliamentarians ratified the EU Constitution, even though the majority of them had not even read it.

Sometimes the strategy is decided perhaps by a too narrow view by some officials. This was what happened in Japan, the giantess of the East, in which, not so long ago, Lithuania had the same number of diplomats as it has, for example, in Georgia.

It could be that the same will happen with the idea that has been declared more and more clearly, that Vilnius has to become a stronger supporter of European integration. And the supporters of these ideas in Lithuania do not even try to reply to the simplest questions asked by experts.

For example, will the Lithuanian people indeed have better lives, if Brussels regulates not only the areas that have been assigned to it so far, but also migration, taxes, or many other spheres?

Will it indeed help to increase, for example, Lithuania’s competitiveness and its wellbeing?

They should be obliged to answer these and similar questions each and every time. Then the foreign policy goals will become much clearer.

The article is translated by the BBC Monitoring

As the Foreign Ministry announced  the students and professors from the European Humanities University (EHU) will visit the institutions of the European Union and non-governmental organizations based in Brussels on 11-12 September.

The aim of the visit is to draw the attention of the European institutions to the important role of the EHU in promoting democratization of Belarus. The visit is also expected to help students and professors to improve their knowledge of the EU and the European Neighbourhood Policy.
 

The European Humanities University is the only non-governmental Belarusian humanitarian university. It was founded in 1992 in Minsk and in 2004 it was closed for political reasons. In 2006 the Government of Lithuania granted to the EHU the official status of a Lithuanian university in Vilnius.

The biggest sponsors of the EHU are the European Commission, the Nordic Council of Ministers, the governments of Lithuania, USA and Sweden. Owing to them, the EHU managed to resume its operation in Lithuania. The support from the European Commission and the Nordic Council of Ministers is allocated to finance the main activities of the university – bachelor and master degree programs of daily and extramural studies as well as grants. Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada, Norway, Finland, Germany also render assistance to the EHU.

This visit is organized by member of the European Socialist Group in the European Parliament Justas Vincas Paleckis and Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

As the Economist Intel unit announced that the democracies in the new EU states are regarded as the flawed once.  The survey suggests that the biggest flaws of it are lack of political culture and lack of involvement of the society to the political process.

According to the research out of 167 states Lithuania received 7.43 points and accordingly holds the 39th position. Latvia with 7.37 points positioned in the 43rd place and Estonia evaluated with 7.74 points is in the 33rd place.  The Baltic States as the majority of the Easter European state fell into a ‘flawed democracy’ category. Only the Czech Republic and Slovenia fell into the “full democracy” category with 8.17 points and the 18th position and with 7.96 points and 27th position respectively.

The highest democracy indexes were those of Holland and Scandinavian countries, they got the first five positions with the democracy index not les than 9.52 points and under the category “full democracy”.

Lithuania’s eastern neighbour Belarus received 3.34 points and gained the 128 position, which is in the category of “authoritarian regimes”.Well, the Baltic States still have a lot to catch up with its Nordic neighbours, but we are moving towards that direction!

As Lithuania’s Interior Ministry has reported Lithuania joined Schengen’s information system on September 1 and legal institution having right to perform search of data and to enter data to information system of Schengen.   At the moment data of people coming to the border are checked not only in national registers, but in information system of Schengen as well.

Starting from Jan.1, 2008, such control will be done only in those border checkpoints that are at the outside border of the European Union (at the border with Russia and Belarus), as well as in international airports. Checking of data of citizens of the Schengen space will be eliminated in international airports in March 2008.

As the ministry reports the experts appointed by the European Council will visit Lithuania on September 16-19 to evaluate Lithuania’s readiness to work with information system of Schengen, also to apply Shengen’s statute-book related to the information system.  After their visit the experts will deliver the findings to the European Council.  Then the European Council will make a decision on elimination of control near inner borders of the European Union by the end of this year.

The Civil Society Institute presented a pool conducted by the market research centre Vilmorus.  The opinion all was done in October 2006.  The Institute has presented a study ‘Lithuania between East and West’.

According to the survey the majority of the Lithuanian consider themselves pro-western, however, quite a few do not have a clear opinion as to what political regime they prefer.

The respondents prefer the western European and US political regimes most — they have the favour of more than 60 percent of the people polled. Lithuania’s political regime was approved by some 25% of the respondents, 30% were negative about it.

On the other hand 10% acclaimed the political regime in Russia, 50% gave a negative estimate to it, the Belarusian political regime was seen as a positive thing by 10% percent and as a negative thing — by 60% of the people polled, while 23% gave a positive estimate and 40% — a negative one when asked for an opinion about the political regime of the former Soviet Union.

The people polled believe the countries that are most friendly to Lithuania are Latvia (61% of the respondents), Poland (53%) and Estonia (45 %t), and the countries that are least friendly are Russia (62%) and Belarus (50%).

As the BNS reported, the opinions of the country’s residents of different nationalities differs — the Russians and the Poles in Lithuania tend to favour Russia and Belarus more than Lithuanians do. 40 % Russians in Lithuania believe their ethnic motherland is hostile towards Lithuania, 38% believe so about Belarus. Among the Polish residents of Lithuania, the opinions are quite similar — 39% and 37%, respectively.

People with above-average income who do not feel any nostalgia towards Russia have even less love lost for Russia and Belarus.

According to the survey If it become public that some Lithuanian political power or figure is supported by representatives of US capital, this news would be seen as a positive thing by 40% and as a negative one — by 24% of the people polled. On the other hand if a Russian capital was used by a political party, 20% of the respondents would favour and 45% would oppose that, this figure standing at 38% and 25% for Polish capital, 46% and 17% for western European and 16% and 48% for Belarusian capital, respectively.

The speculations by Russia that it would deploy the nuclear bombs in Belarus are ” next door to hallucinations ” the Director of the International Relations and Political Sciences Institute of the Vilnius University Raimundas Lopata told to the BNS.

In the opinion of the Director, such actions would contravene the 1968 Treaty on Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, other international commitments, including the 1992 Lisbon protocol to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

 
The Lithuanian public television LTV informed that it is planning to start preparing a broadcast for the neighbouring Belarus.IIt wa informed that general director of the Lithuanian National Radio and Television prepared in Lithuania, the broadcast will be transmitted to Poland and from there it will reach the viewers in Belarus.

“The Polish TV is planning to launch TV channel Belsat for Belarus and has approached us for assistance. We agreed to cooperate,” Petrauskis said.In his words, Lithuania will be preparing a talk show for Belsat, one that will be presenting topics about Belarus and other neighbouring countries, discussing relevant events in the region. The show will be broadcast in Belarusian once per week.

According to the plans the new broadcast will be prepared by journalists in the employ of the Lithuanian TV with the assistance of colleagues from Belarus and Poland.

Those who are interested in learning more about the daily programs in English from the First Lithuanian Radio station click here.