NATO has produced the first draft of the Vilnius Summit Declaration this week as allied members begin negotiations on the final text.
The fact has been confirmed to BNS by several sources speaking on condition of anonymity as they are not authorised to comment on the negotiating process.
“The first draft of the summit declaration has already been prepared and now discussions are starting on the text,” one official told BNS on Thursday.
The Lithuanian government, as well as several other members on NATO’s eastern flank, has been pushing for a concrete membership plan for Ukraine to be agreed before the summit in mid-July.
However, NATO Secretary General said earlier this week that Kyiv will not be getting an invitation to join in Vilnius.
“At the Vilnius summit and in the preparations for the summit, we are not discussing to issue a formal invitation,” he told reporters on Monday after meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin.
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Lithuanian politicians and diplomats have so far refrained from making broader comments because the specific content of the talks is confidential.
Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told the parliament on Thursday that Defence Minister Arvydas Anušauskas and he had voiced Lithuania’s expectations on deterrence and defence in their letter to NATO last week.
“We proposed a certain wording in the declaration to define our special security needs,” he said. “It is difficult to say how successful the talks will be, but we will do our best.”
Lithuania seeks that NATO leaders commit at their summit in Vilnius on July 11-12 to deploy more troops in the region and set the two-percent of GDP defence spending as “a floor”.
No NATO-level arms support
Meanwhile, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has said “there will be no discussion on supporting Ukraine with arms in the NATO format”.
His comment same after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged NATO leaders to focus on ramping up Ukraine’s fighting capacity at their summit in Vilnius in mid-July.
The alliance’s leaders should “focus in Vilnius on what is now an absolute priority – that is, to strengthen the fighting power of Ukraine”, Scholz was quoted as saying.
Landsbergis told reporters in Vilnius on Thursday that “NATO has failed to find a consensus in more than a year of war on how to supply Ukraine with weapons”.
“Either the EU has found [how to do it] via the European Peace Facility, or nations are supporting [Ukraine] bilaterally,” the minister said.
“So there will be no discussion on supporting Ukraine with arms in the NATO format,” he said.
“Maybe some other commitments are possible, but I don’t see them for now, so one of the main discussions is the political track, in other words, what NATO can politically commit to Ukraine,” said Landsbergis.
“So far there has been a lot of talk about unity, but it is obvious that opinions diverge,” he added.
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