President Gitanas Nausėda says he has no regrets about his controversial comment in which he compared German troop deployments to courtship.
Nausėda drew criticism of sexism after he said in an interview with BNS that the German army “is not the kind of girl you can invite for a good evening by the lake in the open air”, saying that it should instead be offered “a marriage contract”.
Read more: Lithuanian president draws ire by comparing German troops to ‘girl you invite for a good evening’
“I certainly have no regrets. There were no sexist intentions in this statement, but I see that there is always some politicians who are just waiting for a way to quickly wash out the content of the discussion and go into some details, gnoseological disputes about the metaphor I used,” Nausėda told TV3 television on Wednesday night.
Nausėda said that his comparison was intended to clarify Lithuania’s position on its obligations to host a German brigade. While some politicians call for the German troops to be permanently deployed in Lithuania as soon as possible, President Nausėda has argued that Vilnius must first invest into infrastructure to accommodate them.
“I certainly see nothing wrong with saying that. I used the metaphor simply to make myself better understood – the commitments that we have to fulfil,” Nausėda told TV3.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Presidential Office said that politicians who were outraged by Nausėda’s comments were trying to divert attention from the uncomfortable topic of the deployment of the German brigade in Lithuania.
President Nausėda’s statement was criticised by the Parliament Speaker Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, as well as the Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson, Birutė Sabatauskaitė, and other politicians, human rights Advocates and public figures.
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