Defense committee chairman: Lithuania can learn from Estonia

"We listened to interesting Estonian presentations on their defense preparedness, on their reserve, and it was said that Estonians, if needed, would be able to mobilize 43,000 troops, including the reserve, and they would have military forces of that size," Anušauskas said at a press conference on Thursday.

"Estonians stressed that building the reserve has been launched long ago, and in fact Lithuania, which has made important decisions in this area in recent years, has things to learn from Estonians. On the other hand, just as in other committees, we talked about defense funding, but I will not focus on that as it's just a problem, and not only for Lithuania, but also for all European countries," Anušauskas said.

Talking at the NATO parliamentary Assembly, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves expressed concern over decreasing defense funding in Europe.

Last year, Estonia allocated 1.7 percent of its GDP for defense, and the Baltic country hopes to increase funding to 2 percent to fulfill the financial commitment to NATO. Meanwhile Lithuania has repeatedly come under criticism over insufficient defense funding and will spend 0.95-0.97 percent of GDP on defense. However, the share will go down to 0.75 percent, if only the funding of the Defense Ministry is considered.

Petras Auštrevičius, head of the Seimas Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, said at the press conference that statements on smart defense not being cheap defense were made several times during the Assembly.

"2 percent of minimal investment into defensive capabilities, into our national security, remains a priority. Therefore, statement that smart defense is not necessarily cheap defense, and cheap defense is not necessarily smart defense is very important, and we need to pay attention to it. We can sometimes deceive ourselves by thinking that smart defense will solve problems caused by not investing that 1 percent," Auštrevičius said.

Russia's position regarding NATO's missile defense system being built in Europe was also discussed at the Assembly. It was concluded that Russia's position remained negative and had not changed.

"Russia's position regarding the missile defense has not changed, and that makes the ongoing negotiations more difficult, but NATO believes they must be continued, and agreements can be reached. But we cannot say as yet that we have agreement with Russia on this important issue," Auštrevičius underlined.