Usually, the country’s leader’s announcements are prepared in advance, involving the most important advisers, but this time we had to take into account the decision of the Social Democrats announced just ten days ago to terminate the coalition agreement with “Nemunas Aušra” and form a new Government.
The head of the country was happy with such a change that he had encouraged for a long time, even saying that it took too much time, too many red lines were crossed and too many drops in the cup of patience.
In a more neutral way, he assessed the decision of Social Democratic leader M. Sinkevičius to decide to lead the Government, which he announced just 20 minutes before the start of the annual report.
Of course, during this time, the president could not add anything new to his speech, which means that this has already been discussed with him before.
The head of the country emphasized that Lithuania needs a Government that is able to constructively cooperate with all political forces, and in the position of prime minister, responsibility when making decisions is important, not ratings or media favors.
This time G. Nausėda, who otherwise avoids sharp rhetoric, unlike his predecessor D. Grybauskaitė, spoke extremely cautiously and diplomatically, rarely mentioning specific names and parties, and his open criticism was directed mainly at “Nemunas Aušra”, which was removed from power.
He even hinted at the incompatibility of the interests of this party and Lithuania several times, and first of all he stated that those who voted against the Kapčiamiestis training ground, which is very important for the security of Lithuania (there were the most of them among the Aušri people) were harming the state.
In particular, the president responded strongly to the aspirations of the Aushri people to lead the energy policy by delegating their representative to the post of the minister in charge of it, which would have threatened the dominance of selfish interests in this area of huge financial flows.
G. Nausėda also credited himself for having managed to prevent this challenge by persuading the Social Democrats not to give energy to the Austrians and to appoint Ž. Vaičiūnas as minister.
Now this post has been promised to the Democrats, and praise for Ž. Vaičiūnas can also mean regret that this minister is going to be abandoned.
Taking into account the huge public indignation, the president inevitably had to take a dig at influential politicians from other parties caught up in corruption scandals in the annual report.
He mentioned the former Social Democrat Prime Minister G. Paluckas, who not only headed the Government, but also S. Skvernelis, the founder of the Democratic Union, who was recently the Chairman of the Seimas, not forgetting the former conservative Minister of Agriculture K. Starkevičius, who admitted to taking a bribe.
At the same time, law enforcement was praised for ignoring any posts.
The president also commented on the theft of data from the Registry Center, recalling what he said before – the malicious activity was not stopped in time, and the population was even more at risk due to the excessively slow reaction of the institutions.
But, perhaps, G. Nausėda’s remarks regarding the LRT law deserve more attention. According to the head of the country, the long consideration of amendments to the law only caused even greater public distrust and was not useful.
Not only that, the president stated that the principles of freedom of speech are now somewhat tarnished and have lost their natural luster.
After admitting that none of the parties that fiercely fought for the LRT can feel defeated, G. Nausėda said that the fight even took on the tone of tragicomedy.
The president also mentioned the middle finger shown in public, although he did not mention the LRT journalist who did it. But it can be understood that he was not on the side of the critics of the amendments.
The president’s position is also clear regarding demographic problems and the dangers of migration. G. Nausėda stated that “Lithuania must remain Lithuanian”, after criticizing the previous conservative Government that, instead of encouraging the birth rate, it opened the gates to economic migrants.
He repeated the proposals regarding benefits for families, housing policy. Education, health, social and even economic policies, the development of innovative technologies must primarily serve to prevent Lithuania from becoming a dying nation.
However, the head of state devoted only a smaller part of the annual report to these topics of internal politics and scandals, as could be expected, he mainly talked about defense and foreign policy matters, about Lithuania’s preparation for especially threatening security challenges.
The president began his annual report with a dramatic story about the weather danger declared for the first time in Lithuania, when he and other leaders had to hide in shelters.
However, there were no hints about possibly misguided Ukrainian drones, and no mention of Kiev being asked to be more cautious about attacking Russian Baltic Sea ports.
On the contrary, support for Ukraine was repeatedly expressed, its air defense experience and the importance of cooperation with this country were emphasized.
In summary, it can be said that G. Nausėda spoke very diplomatically on foreign policy and security issues, relied on NATO Article 5 and the US’s determination to defend Europe, but did not get involved in disputes about Washington’s policy and at the same time paid tribute to all Lithuania’s neighbors.
