Commending the government for successfully handling the challenges posed by the crisis, the president said in an interview to the Veidas weekly magazine that the Cabinet failed to take the opportunity of launching structural reforms of health and social security systems.
"(My view is) ambiguous. It entered the office during a very complicated crisis period, which we managed to survive, although it was not yet handled by some of European countries that continue to burden the entire European economy. Although the government successfully handled the challenges posed by the crisis, it failed to take the opportunity provided by the downturn of taking major structural reforms of the health and social security sectors, as well as making the operations of state-run companies even more efficient," she said in comment of the government's performance.
"In my opinion, the incumbent government is a generator of ideas that offers conceptual proposals, however, is incapable to translate them into reality administratively," she said in the interview published on Monday.
The 15th government headed by the conservatives' leader has been in office since 2008 after replacing the earlier Cabinet of Social Democrat Gediminas Kirkilas.
The Kubilius-led government has already set the record of the longest term in office. Sworn in on Dec. 12 2008, the government includes representatives of the conservatives, Liberal Movement and Liberal and Center Union.
Foreign influence through energy
President Grybauskaitė has given a positive view of the Visaginas Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) project, saying that political life in the country is still being influenced via energy.
"Energy is indeed a geopolitical category. We are not talking about one object but about assurance of independence – both economic and political. Lithuania's politics and political life remain to be influenced via energy, and part of money from the energy business is still used for political corruption," the president said in an interview to the Veidas weekly magazine in comment of the opposition to the Visaginas NPP project.
In her words, large energy projects should not be viewed as commercial only. "I think Lithuania could remain a country of nuclear energy, especially in the light of some neighbors doing everything to keep Lithuania NPP-free and the rapid construction of as many as two other (utilities) next to Lithuania's borders. Extensive efforts are made to keep Lithuania dependent upon a single power supplier," Grybauskaitė said.
"Energy independence takes a diversity of energy sources, therefore, our experience in nuclear energy and potential to remain a nuclear country is one of the options, especially with safe utilization and high-quality maintenance, it is a cheaper and cleaner way of generating energy in the light of CO2 emissions, which are subject to rigid EU requirements. Our objective is to have an opportunity to choose, to buy energy products at global competitive prices, not dictatorship, monopoly or political prices, as the case is for Lithuania now. Therefore, I view the Visaginas project positively," Veidas cited the president as saying.
She also said that disapproval and opposition of part of the society to the Visaginas project is due to the mistakes made by the government not to provide sufficient information.
"If the society has so many questions, it means the information was insufficient. I have to add this has happened again, as the government has never had a dialogue with the public. Communication is the weak chain of this government. The opinion of people is very important, regardless of whether there will be a referendum or not," said Grybauskaitė.
