LRT English Newsletter – June 23, 2023.
Despite the optimism over the past months – coupled with Ukraine’s battlefield successes – the mood of some Lithuanian top officials has been turning rather bleak. Ukraine is unlikely to get more than sugar-coated promises at the Vilnius NATO Summit, they say off-record, while Lithuania’s push to increase NATO troops on home soil is stalling.
“So far there has been a lot of talk about unity, but it is obvious that opinions diverge,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis summarised. The negotiations on the summit’s declaration are now ongoing, sources confirmed to the Baltic News Service.
Vilnius did get promises of a rotational air defence presence, but the country has been seeking for years for the Baltic air policing mission to receive an air defence upgrade (read, more weapons), to no avail. Some countries, according to the defence minister, are still blocking NATO’s updated regional defence plans. Recall, in 2019 Turkey said ‘stop’, demanding the alliance support its Syria operation against Western-backed Kurds. Meanwhile, the PM did indicate Lithuania’s own division-to-be would get additional, off-the-books funding.
NATO enlargement is also expanding the scope of discussions on neutrality. First, it was Sweden to waive its neutral status, now, the question has reached Ireland. Speaking in an interview for Business Post, the country’s president Michael D Higgins made a diplomatic faux pas by referring to other countries when discussing something that Dublin shouldn’t do, ie join NATO. “If you interfere with that [neutrality], there’s no difference between you and Lithuania and Latvia,” he said.
The summit itself will be historic, but it may be so for all the wrong reasons, according to the Lithuanian foreign minister. “The only question is whether it will be historic because of its achievements or historic because of missed opportunities. Is there such a possibility? It certainly exists,” said Landsbergis.
MIDSUMMER NIGHT
On Saturday, Lithuania is marking the Midsummer Festival – It will not really get dark the whole night, plenty of people will sing folk songs, jump through fire, and walk barefoot through grass. Here are some of the things you can find in and around Vilnius.
And why does it always rain in the Baltics during Midsummer? The Latvians have even coined a term to describe it – “līst kā pa Jāņiem” (rains like Midsummer). Does it have any basis in facts? Here’s the rundown from our friends in Riga, the Latvian public broadcaster LSM.
FAMILY VALUES
Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda delivered his annual speech at the parliament where he mentioned the word “family” multiple times. The most discussed, at least in the Vilnius bubble, has been the following statement: “But why not set a truly ambitious goal, such as becoming the most family-friendly country in the European Union?”
The parliamentary opposition, meanwhile, accused the conservatives of behaving arrogantly during the president’s speech. Read more of what the president spoke about here.
RAINBOW ESTONIA
Estonia became the first Baltic country to legalise same-sex marriage. Notably, it is also the first post-Soviet country to do so. Meanwhile, Lithuania’s partnership legislation has been watered down, repeatedly, and is still stuck in parliament; same-sex marriage is nowhere in sight.
Activists and supporters stress that passing such legislation would help Baltics shed their “post-Soviet” tag, which, arguably, has been fading already from public discourse. Whether related or not, it’s interesting that Reuters, when reporting about the news in Estonia, referred to the Baltic states as “previously annexed by the Soviet Union”, breaking from the oft-used “ex-Soviet countries”. Granted, the news flash was written by a Latvian and a Lithuanian reporter.
(Read more about the changing vocabulary at Emerging Europe, our partners, here.)
ECONOMY LATEST
Lithuania’s economy is not in recession, but merely in a “short-term dip”, according to the PM, while the long-awaited tax reform package has been okayed after all, despite opposition from members of the ruling bloc, and is due to be presented to the parliament.
EDITOR’S PICKS
– What’s holding back Russia’s decolonisation?
– Scopes used by the Russian military are being supplied by a Belarusian manufacturer, which is also based in Lithuania. Read the LRT Investigation here.
– Today, Kaunas is taken to be the “most Lithuanian” of the country’s major cities, but that is a relatively recent development.
– Lithuania spent 1.4% GDP on support for Ukraine last year.
– Vytautas Šustauskas, the colourful former politician known for his protests against high-society balls, has passed away aged 78.
– Lithuania has moved ahead with the stripping of nationality given to Margarita Drobiazko, a Russian national and ice skater, criticised for her controversial post-war performances in Russia. “It’s their business,” she told Russian TV.
– Should Lithuanians not compete against Russian athletes, but risk harming their careers? Opinions are split.
– And here’s your chance to pull back the curtain on Lithuania’s (not great, not terrible, self-rated at 6.5/10) sexual habits.
Would you like to contribute to LRT English? Please send your suggestions, submissions, and pitches to english@lrt.lt
Written by Benas Gerdžiūnas
Edited by Ieva Žvinakytė
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