"I would like once again to express my respect to those reforms carried out in the Baltic states and especially in Lithuania," he said after a meeting with Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė in Vilnius.
"We saw the way your government was trying to carry out austerity reforms, and we are glad that your government had determination to carry out them even those the government suspected that it would not be rewarded for those reforms," the German president said.
In late 2008, the center-right government took painful austerity measures by reducing public expenses and cutting wages and social payments.
Lithuania's GDP plummeted by nearly 15 percent in 2009 but returned to growth as early as the following year. Lithuania's economy has been among the fastest-growing in the EU for the last several years.
Germany cannot pay for mistakes of others
Lithuanian President Grybauskaite meanwhile assures that she supports Germany's policies in the European Union and underlines that other countries cannot demand that Germany pay for their mistakes.
Following the meeting with German President Gauck, Grybauskaitė said that Berlin was exhibiting "goodwill and flexibility" during the crisis.
"To demand that Germany pay for mistakes of other governments and countries would not be a good thing to do, and one cannot demand that as every German citizen also pays in this case when we ask for solidarity from Germany only," the Lithuanian president told journalists.
"The ability to see the need and give a helping hand to countries that perhaps made a mistake, the ability to feel the duty and responsibility for the fate of the whole of Europe – it's an exceptional policy of Germany," Grybauskaitė underlined.
Germany has come under criticism of crisis-hit Southern Europe in recent years, being accused of a lack of solidarity and putting pressure on southern countries to take stringent austerity measures.
