Publicly naming Lithuanian businesses working with Russia is one of the options under discussion, Laurynas Kasčiūnas, chairman of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defence, said on Wednesday.
The committee is holding a meeting later on Wednesday to look at the extent and trends of Lithuanian business relations with Russia.
“Making them public is one of the options under consideration,” Kasčiūnas told LRT RADIO in the morning.
“We will talk about it and look at how this measure [...] would comply with data protection rules and various EU regulations, because we have to understand [...] that we are talking about goods that are not subject to sanctions,” the conservative MP said.
“What falls under sanctions cannot be exported and such relations cannot be maintained, but when it comes to goods that are not sanctioned, in principle, trade can take place and relations can exist, but then each country and each company has to ask itself how it looks in terms of morality,” he added.
According to Kasčiūnas, companies working with Russia indirectly support Putin’s regime and the viability of the Russian economy through business contacts, and may also conclude contracts with sanctioned Russian businesses.
The conservative politician said that another possible safeguard would be to ban Lithuanian companies that work with Russia from bidding for public procurement contracts.
Official statistics show that slightly more than half of Lithuanian exporters to Russia severed their business ties with the country in 2022 and that there are over 200 companies trading with it.
The number of Lithuanian companies exporting to Belarus has increased to more than 700 since the start of the war in Ukraine, according to the State Data Agency.
Based on figures from the Economy and Innovation Ministry, exports of Lithuanian-origin goods to Russia totalled 171 million euros and Lithuanian imports from Russia amounted to 2.8 billion euros between January and October 2022, down by 42.8 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively, compared to the same period in 2021.
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