Where are you going, Lithuania?

 

Unfortunately, serious people have been laughing at rural nature of Lithuanian business and rural nature of Lithuanian politics for a long time. During the period of Independence, we became a nation of self-serving cynics. Everything we do is sewn with white threads, it is clear that we do everything with the goal of maximum benefit for me precious personally. We fool the villagers, we prosper exploiting them. The whole world is taking advantage of our stupidity. The Chinese, Russians and Belarusians make us an example for others. Meanwhile, the Swiss are preparing to strengthen Switzerland's neutrality with a referendum. Neutrality would also be of great benefit to us in our troubled region. It is really worth holding such a referendum in Lithuania as well. The referendum would automatically throw the cynics - adventurers out of our government. Those remaining in power would stop barking at Belarus, Russia and China and find real jobs:

 

    "In a letter to the editor, one reader of the weekly newspaper "Economist" wrote that perhaps becoming a quietly prosperous, somewhat boring country, peacefully coexisting with its neighbors, where there is no place for political dramas and extremists, where political decisions are determined by careful considerations and compromises, where social inequality of the population is decreasing, where everybody has a strong sense of belonging to a group, is not a bad place at all, and can be learned from. This was in response to the editorial comment that Switzerland is boring, that it is not a country that people think of as forward-looking.

 

    Lithuania is not Switzerland, but it also has something to be proud of, namely the great progress made during the 30 years of Independence. Together with Estonia and Latvia, Lithuania can be considered an example of success, in many respects it is not inferior to the allegedly more advanced countries of Central Europe, not to mention other former Soviet republics. Lithuania is a prosperous stable democracy, it is almost unimaginable that someone would organize a coup or intend to massively falsify the elections, limit the freedom of the press or manipulate it. Unlike in the Scandinavian countries, no extreme party has won more than two percent of the vote. Only once - in 1992. - early elections were held.

 

    The achievements and progress of the Lithuanian economy are insufficiently appreciated. The country overcame major economic crises in 1991-1994, 1999, and 2008-2009, radically restructured the economy, reoriented itself to export, created a stable financial system, and consistently receives positive assessments from international assessment institutions. In terms of purchasing power, Lithuania's GDP per capita is quite impressive. Last year it exceeded $46,000 and is higher than Spain, Hungary, Poland, Latvia and Estonia. GDP according to purchasing power is neither the only nor the most reliable indicator of a country's economic condition, but it is significant.

 

    There are still flaws. For many years, the government and the country's elite were indifferent to the fate of poorer citizens and did not try to reduce social exclusion. But in the last five, six years, energetic steps have been taken to promote social justice, pensions, minimum monthly wages and various benefits have been significantly increased, so the condition of the less well-off has greatly improved, and it will improve even more in the future.

 

    Lithuania is far from Switzerland. But a hundred years ago, both Switzerland and Austria were not signposts for other countries. Their road to prosperity was not short, and Lithuania's road will not be short either. 

 

At the beginning of the century, disaster struck Lithuania when our politicians sowed a seed of vanity, announced that Lithuania, unlike Estonia, would not be satisfied with being a "golden province" (if I'm not mistaken, Lithuanians came up with this derogatory name), would not be satisfied with giving priority to ensuring the well-being of its residents. The then interim president of Lithuania, Artūras Paulauskas, said that "I see Lithuania as a kind of regional center, and Vilnius as the capital of the region". The opinion has become established that if Lithuania does not become a regional leader and remains passive, it will not have a greater role in participating in NATO and EU decision-making. Another layer of vanity was soon added - Lithuania would foster a moral politics based on values, partly because it was feared that the old European states would tend to turn away from their principles.

 

    Lithuania did not become the leader of the region because no country recognized Lithuania's leadership and it was not clear in which areas Lithuania would be the leader. The very thought gave itself to hubris. In 2006 Lithuania had 3.27 million population (now half a million less), so as much as they had its Western European metropolis with its suburbs. Lithuania did not have any special qualities to justify its claims, except for good basketball players.

 

    Russia's neighborhood affected Lithuania's politics, but leadership dreams gave it a special tone. There are significantly more Russians living in Estonia and Latvia, these two countries carried the yoke of the Russian Empire and the USSR longer than Lithuania, since they fell under Moscow's rule almost a century earlier. So the Estonians and Latvians seemed to have better conditions than our self-proclaimed Russian experts to understand the depths of the Russian soul. But they are not proud of it. It is noteworthy that the presidents of Estonia and Latvia, T. Ilves and V. Vaira-Freiberga, expressed the Russian problem more coherently and sophisticatedly, although they did not think that they were called to lead the region.

 

    Tallinn consistently allocates almost 2% of GDP to defense spending (not the 1% percentage that Lithuania sometimes did not scratch), and has never refused conscripts. About half of young people aged 18-28 serve in the army, children of the elite, such as the son of President Ilves, did not avoid service. One gets the impression that their policy towards Russia is not much different from that of Lithuania, although they avoid constant rhetorical excesses.

 

    The desire to take an effective role in international politics probably diverts the attention of the Lithuanian authorities from the need to give priority to the country's well-being and prosperity. Lots of those quixotic adventures that politicians use to prove their leadership. The most striking example is the decision to open a Taiwanese representative office without calculating the possible reaction of China. Only after five years will it be possible to more accurately determine the economic consequences, but if Lithuania does not suffer much, it will be thanks to the support of the allies. We wade into the muck, they pull us out.

 

    Recently, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, G. Landsbergis, has been talking a lot about the fact that Lithuania is gathering a coalition of countries that would help unblock the port of Odessa and thus export grain. It's pure show and bullshit. Lithuania neither participated nor was invited to participate in the negotiations on this issue, it does not have modern military equipment, which might be necessary if the unblocking of the ports could not be done without military action. There are many such examples.

 

    Leadership claims help to create misleading expectations about the behavior that Lithuania should legitimately receive. After learning that the United States had contributed by easing sanctions on Russian rail traffic to Kaliningrad, some commentators claimed that Washington had once again pandered to the Russians, and that Lithuania had to let the city and the world know that it did not agree. Here the insulted self-love spoke, connected with the tendency to see betrayals where there are none, and with exaggerated expectations that the United States should behave as Vilnius wants, because Lithuania has the right to such behavior due to its leadership. This is an unfounded illusion that shows that not only politicians have an exalted and distorted understanding of Lithuania's role."