Following his meeting with President Dalia Grybauskaitė on Friday, reporters asked Olekas whether he was satisfied with the outgoing government's proposed budget of LTL 923.9 million (around EUR 270 million) for national defense or whether funding would be increased, to which Olekas replied: "I can only make comparisons: in our times (i.e., under Social Democratic government 2004-2008), the army used to be allocated LTL 1.2 billion."
But he added: "Perhaps we'll sit down after the Cabinet is sworn in and look at what we might do in the framework of this budget. But perhaps there will be no major revolutions as the prime minister-designate said. And we'll look into the future. We have what we have, and now we have to look into the future."
"All parties have signed an agreement that among other solutions of national defense problems, one of the problems is spending for national defense. Parties have made the commitment for that funding to increase gradually and it will continue to go up. I believe we'll do that over the next four years," Olekas said.
He refused to guess when Lithuania's national defense spending would reach the 2 percent of GDP target.
"Today I cannot really say. I will be able to give an answer after we get next year's budget which will be discussed not by the outgoing but the new government. When we'll be drafting the 2014-2016 budget, then we'll see what the pace of that increase can be," Olekas said.
Šiauliai to remain the base for Baltic air policing
Olekas also insists that Lithuania's Šiauliai should remain the main base for the NATO Baltic air policing mission, while a back-up base might be situated in Estonia.
"I believe we won't definitely have an easy discussion as our colleagues in Estonia used to have such wishes in the past as well. It seems to me that it would be much more rational to have a reinforced base in Šiauliai. Estonia might be an alternative and have a back-up base where, if needed, NATO planes might land as well," he said.
"As far as I know now, it seems to me that it would be much more rational to have a permanent base here, in Šiauliai," Olekas said when asked about possible rotation of the mission.
