Debate: This is Europe - Debate with the President of Lithuania, Gitanas Nausėda
Date: TUESDAY, 14 MARCH 2023
Speaker: Gitanas Nausėda
Language: EN

You know, I am new man in the politics. I went to the politics in 2009. In 2019, as an independent candidate, I was elected President of Lithuania. But one issue I realised being in the politics is that the politics is not just peaceful and coexistence with the political parties. This is a fight. This is a competition, and this is not a competition for my own interests, but it’s a competition for the ideas I present. And one of the main priorities for which I went to the politics and my programme was dedicated to the social welfare state idea. And even in being in this competition, sometimes with the opposition, sometimes with ruling coalition, we were able to implement some very important measures which will make the life of some sensitive and exposed groups of society better. First of all, the pensioners, socially, affected families and so on and so on. Now some comments on migration. I would like to touch the issue of migration because this is very important. We have two kinds of migration: migration which is caused by just spontaneous movements of the people from countries where there are some social problems, those countries which are in a state of war. And this second kind of migration, we call it instrumentalised migration. And we faced this phenomenon into 2020. People just became the weapons in the hands of some totalitarian leaders which are near to us, for example, Mr Lukashenka. And he used deliberately this kind of migration, just trying to destabilise the situation in my country and in European Union. What do we need in this situation? We need a very clear legal framework in order to deal with this kind of challenges. if we will not have it we will just put the instruments into the hands of Lukashenka or Putin to attack us, to destabilise us. And this is not good. So this is the reason why we ask European Parliament, we ask European Commission to provide this kind of legal framework in order to be more efficient and in order to be more successful in fighting illegal migration. Of course this is not only one issue, there are many other issues. And we have we have to strengthen our strategic communication. We have to help these people, which returned to their origin countries to be reintegrated into the society. And we have much to be, much more active in the countries of origin of migration and transit of migration. Now about Ukraine: why is Lithuania is taking the lead in providing the support to Ukraine? I can explain it by telling you some historic facts. There was a time in the 14th, 15th, 16th century when we were in the same commonwealth, the Commonwealth of Lithuanians co-existing with Belarusians and Ukrainians. And it was very peaceful formation of the countries, one common body of countries, and there was full respect of the nations to each other, even the nations which belong to different language groups. They have very different traditions. And, you know, these kind of feelings that we remember lead to empathy towards Ukraine. We treat them like the brothers and sisters, they are our brothers and sisters. The second reason: Lithuania has no one else — probably maybe Baltic countries and Poland, putting them together — who understands that the fight. In the battle on the battlefields in Ukraine it is a freedom fight. But not only the freedom fight for Ukrainians, this is our freedom fight. Because, as my colleague, I think, from Estonia mentioned, the second target will be the Baltic countries, Poland, maybe Romania, and there will be third target if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine. There will be next targets, we have to be fully aware of it. China: yes, Lithuania has some interesting, challenging history of relations with China. Several years ago, we decided to leave so-called format of ‘17 plus one’ because we realised that this format is not promising very much to us and implementing very important infrastructure projects and so on and so on. And we decided to leave it. And we still defend the idea that we have to speak with China with one voice. So ‘27 countries plus one’ would be the most suitable format in communication and relations with China. Some other countries followed our example, and now this format is already 13 or 14 plus one. And I think that sooner or later we will come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with China is just 27 plus one. Enlargement of European Union: this is very important and we are a keen proponent of enlargement of Europe. We defend the right of our nations to join the European Union sooner or later. So this is the reason why we support the aspirations of Moldova, the aspirations of Ukraine, the aspirations of Georgia, because we remember very well what a powerful trigger from progress our membership in the European Union was. As we entered European Union, we started from 43% of GDP per capita. Now we already reached 86% of GDP per capita, and we are running forward with excellent speed. So this is a huge opportunity to be European, but this is also a responsibility. To be European means responsibility, to be sensible, to be united and to help the countries in need. And this country in need is now Ukraine. So we have to understand and remember it very well.