Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė hopes that discussions on the deployment of a German brigade in Lithuania will be replaced by specific planning work.
“A brigade is not a matter of a month, two months, or six months. The government is doing its job, it has planned funds for military mobility, for host country support, and will do everything possible to accommodate as many allied troops as possible,” Šimonytė told reporters at the Seimas on Tuesday.
“I hope that the discussions will end, and we will move on to specific planning,” she added.
On Monday, German Ambassador to Lithuania Matthias Sonn said that the public debate on Germany’s commitment to deploy a brigade in Lithuania has acquired the tone of distrust, which is hurting Germany and is a “corrosive and harmful” debate.
Sonn noted that statements that Germany is backtracking on its commitment to send a brigade to Lithuanian are insulting, adding that publicly expressed dissatisfaction will not send any additional troops to Lithuania.
Read more: Ambassador slams Lithuania’s ‘corrosive’ debate on German brigade deployment
In response, Šimonytė said that debate is inevitable in a democracy.
“It may seem that these matters could be assessed in a more reserved manner when the debate is about security issues, but I think we should not lump these things together,” the prime minister said.
In June, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz signed a joint communiqué stating that “in addition to the current and reinforced enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group already in place, Germany is ready to lead a robust and combat-ready brigade in Lithuania dedicated to deter and defend against Russian aggression”.
Vilnius wants a full rotational German brigade to be permanently deployed in Lithuania. Berlin officials, however, have said numerous times that part of the brigade would be deployed in Lithuania and the rest would stay in Germany.
Germany has so far only deployed the planned brigade’s forward command element to Lithuania.
Germany also leads an international NATO battle group stationed in Lithuania since 2017.
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