VIEWS FROM THE CAPITALS

Summer 2007

by Jonas Cicinskas

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When in January of this year Russia suspended its oil supplies through Belarus, importers like Germany and Poland cried foul. At once the EU institutions swung into action, questioning Russia’s reliability as an international energy supplier, and within days the oil flowed again. Yet when last August the Russian pipeline to the only oil refinery in Lithuania mysterious broke down within months of the complex being sold to a Polish company rather than to Russia’s Lukoil, this country had been left to sort out its own problems. Since then, oil to the Mažeikių nafta refinery has been shipped by sea, a much more expensive option that cut its profits to 192m Litas last year from 885m Litas in 2005. No report has yet been received from Russia to explain the nature of the damage to the pipeline, nor has any schedule of repair works been made public.

This episode illustrates why there is a growing sense of the need to rearrange and enhance Lithuania’s European policy, with people coming gradually to realise that the European Union is a complex organisation of unequal partners. Comfortable popular assumptions about the economic benefits of EU membership are steadily fading away, and the country’s political cognoscenti are beginning to contrast the current impasse with Russia over oil supplies and the close cooperation between European and Lithuanian institutions when the EU perceives its own vital interests to be at stake.

Towards the end of Lithuania’s EU accession negotiations, for example, a problem emerged over Russian transit rights through Lithuanian territory to its coastal enclave of Kaliningrad. As these transit rights would infringe the EU’s strict external border regulations once Lithuania had joined the Union, the European Commission, the Russian Federation and Lithuania quickly agreed a flexible rail transport deal to settle the issue. When the EU perceived a decision to be essential, action was decisive.

Lithuania’s present energy problems, in comparison, seem of little direct consequence to the EU. These tribulations extend beyond the damaged oil pipeline and include gas imports from Russia too. The European Union wants all gas markets to be liberalised as part of the common energy policy, and Lithuania’s parliament, the Seimas, has been debating for two years the best time to open up the domestic market to competition. Lithuania’s difficulty stems from its physical isolation from European gas networks. Having no fossils fuels of its own, the country remains entirely dependent for supplies on the Russian state-controlled monopoly Gazprom. If the government liberalises the gas market now, it will have to break a long-term agreement with Gazprom, which may well retaliate with price hikes, and perhaps by as soon as July of this year.

While this issue may seem negligible on the European scale, it has become a serious matter for Lithuania’s political community, which is seeking deeper insights into the country’s new situation as a member of what is still principally a western group of nations. Concern over Lithuania’s role in the EU is even filtering down to the public, who have hitherto shown little interest in European issues. Today, the Lithuanian people’s tolerance and trust of the country’s political leaders, which had been evident since the country’s EU accession talks, is steadily being replaced by annoyance at the élite’s apparent indifference to their views on Europe.

This shift in public attitudes began with the government’s rapid ratification of the original EU constitutional treaty in November 2004, which made Lithuania the first member state to ratify the constitution. The speed of this official decision created a lasting impression among a wide political and academic audience that, rather than acting upon some deep-seated enthusiasm for European integration, parliament was simply indifferent not only to the treaty itself but also to whether public opinion wanted still closer ties with “Europe”.

Fortunately, some political leaders and top foreign ministry officials have recently recognised the change in public sentiment towards Europe. In response, they gathered in February to discuss the objectives and methods of Lithuania’s European policy. The meeting agreed that the strategy of accommodation towards the EU which had been so helpful, even unavoidable, during the country’s preparations for accession was no longer adequate. It was decided that the country therefore needs a more active and constructive approach to European issues. Lithuania, it would seem, is fast learning the hard lesson about cooperation and non-cooperation in the EU.
jonas.cicinskas@tspmi.vu.lt