Ramūnas Vilpišauskas, head of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University, has noted that when he was in opposition and during his election campaign, the incumbent prime minister said numerous times that the previous conservative-led government had racked up debts.
"To hear what he said yesterday was, to say the least, strange. To put it mildly, one could draw a conclusion from that that it makes no sense to take what the prime minister's talking seriously," Vilpišauskas told BNS on Tuesday.
"But then a question arises as to what this government's position means and to what extent we can trust this talking. What politicians say depends on where they are – in the position or opposition. In such a case, there's still no point in hoping for a consistent policy," he said.
In an interview on Monday, Social Democratic Prime Minister Butkevičius said the government debt could have been increased by several billion litas during the recession when the conservatives were in power, instead of making decisions on pay cuts that were later ruled unconstitutional.
"There could have been another option. In fact, they could have increased the government debt then by, for example, 2 billion litas, and nothing would have happened as we have so far met the Maastricht criteria," the prime minister told the national broadcaster LRT.
Nerijus Mačiulis, a senior economist at Swedbank, says Lithuania had very few opportunities to borrow in late 2008 and in 2009.
"The interests rates Lithuania had to pay show that at the time they stood at around 10 percent. And, of course, those interest rates were very closely linked to investors' fear that Lithuania might have a deficit and debt that are too large and that the country might not be able to pay its debts in the future," Mačiulis told BNS.
The Lithuanian government took painful austerity measures in 2009 after the country's GDP plummeted by 14.8 percent. The Lithuanian economy returned to growth only in 2010 when the GDP rate was up by modest 1.5 percent. In 2011, the economy expanded by 6 percent and grew by 3.6 percent last year. The Ministry of Finance's estimates show the GDP is expected to grow by 3 percent this year.
In early July, Lithuania's Constitutional Court ruled that wage cuts for civil servants and judges during the recession partly ran counter to the country's Constitution.
