Electoral Actions of Poles in Lithuania joins defense agreement

"Since there was no decision by the presidium, we could not sign it. After the presidium's approval, we did it. State defense is an important thing, and we take it very seriously. And despite the fact that we have many financial problems in the country, defense funding should be reasonably increased," Talmont told BNS.

The agreement on defense policy in 2012-2016, recently signed by major political parties in Lithuania, was on Wednesday officially presented to NATO ambassadors at the Lithuanian parliament.

The agreement was earlier signed by leaders of the Homeland Union–Lithuanian Christian Democrats, Liberal and Center Union, Liberal Movement, Social Democratic Party of Lithuania, Labor Party, the Order and Justice Party and the party "Union YES".

The document states that the country's parliamentary parties, which support Lithuania's role in strengthening NATO's collective defense and security system and the European Union's security and defense policy, as well as strongly believe that the state's military capabilities have to be strengthened by gradually increasing funding for the national system, make the commitment "to gradually increase funding for the national defense on an annual basis, to seek in the long-term that 2 percent of GDP were allocated for the national defense system."

Lithuania's current defense spending is under 1 percent of GDP, although NATO member countries have assumed the commitment of seeking to allocate at least 2 percent.

Lithuania has come under NATO criticism over insufficient defense spending. The issue was also on the agenda of the meeting between Degutiene and US Senate's Armed Services Committee member John McCain in Vilnius last week.

The first time the agreement on defense policy was submitted to the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense was back in 2009, however, it was never signed.

According to government's calculations, Lithuania's current defense spending stands at 0.95-0.97 percent of GDP.

In 2004, 11 Lithuanian political parties committed themselves to granting at least 2 percent of the GDP for defense purposes in the 2005-2008 period as continuation of the analogous document signed in 2001. Nevertheless, the objective was never reached.