Lithuania's Search for Security

Lithuania suffers from an old trauma: being overrun.

The country lost its independence in 1939. In the 1940s, it was subjected first to Soviet and then Nazi occupation. After the Nazi reign of terror ended, the Red Army moved back in, in 1944 and incorporated Lithuania into the USSR.

But in more than four decades of forced Soviet assimilation, Lithuanians never lost their desire to be free. Lithuania always saw itself as a European nation.

With the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Lithuania regained its independence, and its pride.

Since then, the country has steadily pursued integration into Western institutions like NATO and the European Union. It sees membership as a guarantee of its freedom and independence.

"Together with other countries we shall build our common house of Europe and strengthen NATO as our security umbrella," Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus said in his annual address to the people at the beginning of this year.

On track for 2004

Lithuania started the actual accession talks with the European Union in 2000 and hopes to complete them at the end of this year. The prospects are good: Last December, the EU said Lithuania was one of the ten candidate countries on track for membership in 2004.

The country has successfully closed negotiations on 24 of the 31 chapters that needed to be resolved with the European Union. Among them are the harmonization of taxation, customs union, issues like education and training and the common European foreign and security policy.

This year marks the final negotiating period for Lithuania. And the country's European committee said the year of negotiations still ahead would be the toughest yet – it would be the year during which "the issues that will determine the EU's financial support for Lithuania will have to be settled."

It's the financial support from the EU that Lithuanians hope will guarantee their economic stability and prosperity in the future.

Crime, corruption and agriculture

Though Lithuania has come a long way in its negotiations with the European Union, some key issues remain to be resolved. Among the biggest stumbling blocks are agriculture and justice.

Crime and corruption are serious problems in Lithuania. According to a recent survey conducted by Transparency International, an international non-governmental organization devoted to combating corruption, 76 percent of Lithuanians believe corruption is a problem in their country. More than half think political parties and the parliament itself are rife with corruption.

Earlier this year, the President Adamkus acknowledged that corruption was a problem when he called on parties and officials to finally "get rid of bad habits inherited from the Soviet past".

In Soviet times, bribing the authorities was often the only way to get things done. Some Lithuanians seem to still hold on to those practices today.

"We must overcome manifestations of oligarchy, double standards as well as corruption in politics and our daily life," Adamkus said.

Kaliningrad and relations with Russia

But regardless of whether Lithuania likes it or not, Russia will always play a special role for this small Baltic country. The reason is the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad is sandwiched between Lithuania, Poland and the Baltic sea. Once Lithuania and Poland become European Union members, Kaliningrad will become completely surrounded by the EU. And Russia feels uneasy about that prospect.

Since regaining its independence, Lithuania has worked hard to cooperate with Russia on the issue of Kaliningrad. Lithuania has aimed to keep trade and border restrictions as low as possible.

But once Lithuania enters the European Union, it will have to adopt the EU's stringent border controls. This could pose a problem for the 1.3 million people of Kaliningrad. Both Moscow and the EU want to ensure goods and people can move in and out of the region and avoid any deterioration in social conditions there.

continued on page 2

Russian territory surrounded by NATO

The issue gets trickier with NATO expansion. Poland already is a member of NATO and Lithuania urgently wants to join. That would leave the small enclave completely surrounded by NATO, an uneasy prospect for Russia.

Moscow has often expressed its discomfort about NATO expansion in recent years. But it's been powerless to halt the process.

Trade with the European Union

The European Union is Lithuania’s main trade partner. Its share in Lithuania’s trade has constantly increased since a Free Trade Agreement between the two came into force in 1995. But imports to Lithuania have grown much stronger than exports to the EU countries and the country's trade balance is negative.

According to the Lithuanian Statistical Department, Germany is the country's main trade partner, followed by the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden.

Lithuania has mainly imported machinery, electrical goods and chemical products from these EU countries. It has exported textiles, machinery, mineral products and wood to the member states of the European Union. In the year 2000, Lithuanian exports to the EU accounted for almost half (48 %) of the country's exports.

Over the last four years the share of EU in foreign direct investment to Lithuania constantly increased. At the beginning of 2001, it amounted to 64 percent of the total foreign direct investment.

Shaping public opinion

In 1999, the Lithuanian government started an ambitious public education program regarding EU membership. It opened ten European information centers in different Lithuanian regions, where citizens can easily access information about the European Union. And it organized hundreds of public events dealing with EU membership in the capital Vilnius and throughout Lithuania.

The government identified special target groups for its information campaign like journalists, young people and the rural population. For each of these, it tailor-made individual components of the campaign: conferences, public discussions, competitions and an internet website.

On this EU information website, the Lithuanian government says it sees EU enlargement as "a historic opportunity to unite Europe peacefully after generations of division and conflict."

That might be most important for a country like Lithuania, which knows such division and conflict all too well.