"There has been no shortage of ever-new percentages for defense budgets being announced in recent weeks, but no country has gone as far as Lithuania.
The largest of the three Baltic countries, with a population of just under three million, plans to invest up to six percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in its own defense from next year. This would put Lithuania, which already spends 3.2 percent of its GDP on defense, at the top of all EU and NATO states and even overtake Poland, which plans to increase its defense budget to 4.7 percent this year.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda justified the decision announced in mid-January by the National Defense Council, which includes the heads of the government and the army, by saying, among other things, that it would speed up the establishment of a division within the army. "The likelihood of Russian military aggression is still real, but it is not imminent," said Nauseda. Nevertheless, Lithuania must significantly increase its efforts to strengthen defense and deterrence and provide more resources for this. "Our security is also guaranteed by our NATO membership, but it will only be effective if we are ready to defend ourselves."
The new Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene explained that with this measure, Lithuania is striving to have an effectively armed army. The current budget is not enough to build a division, i.e. a large military unit, by 2030, to create the infrastructure for it and to equip it with tanks and armored personnel carriers in time. The budget would make it possible to make faster advance payments to purchase military equipment.
Lithuania wants to equip its division with German Leopard tanks, which must be paid for now in order to receive them in time for 2030, said the Defense Minister.
Lithuania currently spends around 2.5 billion euros annually on its army, which has around 20,000 soldiers. Conscription is nine months and was reintroduced in 2014 after the Crimean events.
The new government led by the Social Democrats, of which Sakaliene is a member, has already raised the debt ceiling in order to increase defense spending to four percent this year. An initiative founded by Lithuanian companies had long campaigned for this goal and at the same time offered to pay more taxes.
President Nauseda, however, is critical of the latter. "We must avoid linking higher defense spending with a higher tax burden for the population," he said.
Lithuania's Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas believes that a loan fund for all EU countries would be helpful. "The most effective and fastest source of financing is to give member states long-term access to capital at a low interest rate," he said on Wednesday. "That could be the way to finance defense spending." Defense Minister Sakaliene also hopes to be able to cover part of the expenditure with European funds. The EU should develop financial instruments more quickly for this; it is a common task.
Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk has long been trying in vain to convince the EU of the need for joint defense spending. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in particular is strictly against this.
The EU's foreign policy chief, Estonia's former Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, spoke out on Wednesday in favor of significantly increasing defense spending in all EU countries. "It is time to invest," said Kallas in Brussels. "Many of our intelligence services inform us that Russia could test the EU's defense readiness in three to five years." The EU must therefore show strength now, because that is the only language Putin understands. His Russia represents an existential threat "as long as we invest too little in our defense." Lithuania's President Nauseda is calling for a defense budget of three percent as a target for all NATO countries. "We must close critical gaps in NATO's defense plans in order to be ready to deter Russian aggression and, if necessary, defeat it."
The head of the populist "Memel Dawn", Remigijus Zemaitaitis, whose party governs in Vilnius with the Social Democrats, criticized the decision to increase defense spending. He said he was not only against it, but also thought it was unrealistic to finance so expensive national defense solely from the state budget.
However, Zemaitaitis was only speaking for a small part of the Lithuanian population, which, given its experiences with Russia in the Soviet Union, has been calling for more commitment to defense since 2014.
Ukraine once had a defense budget of four percent discussed, said Lithuanian Parliament Speaker Saulius Skvernelis this week after returning from a visit to Kyiv. Since 2022, the country has been forced to spend 25 percent. "If we want to go down this path too, we can do nothing and wait." Lithuania's President Nauseda suggested using Lithuania's foreign reserves of seven billion euros to be able to set up the division quickly, and he justified this with history. Historical experience shows that the money often had to be used to maintain a government in exile. "I would rather see the money used to ensure that there will never be a Lithuanian government in exile again," said Nauseda. "That is our job." [1]
Our job is to live and let live. Our job is to work for peace. Our job is to grow our economy. Our job is to avoid buying expensive tanks that are defeated by cheap drones every day. Our job is to do serious diplomacy. Our job is to become a neutral country, so nations around us are not afraid to deal with us.
1. Kriegstüchtiges Litauen: Das baltische Land will bis zu sechs Prozent seines BIP für Verteidigung ausgeben / Von Stefan Locke, Warschau. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; Frankfurt. 24 Jan 2025: 10
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