Next year, Lithuania will celebrate the millennium of its existence. Namely in 1009 the country was mentioned by this name in the chronicles (annals) of the German city of Quedlinburg as a geographical reference where Brunon, one of the pioneering missionaries bringing Christianity into the lands of nature-worshippers at the Baltic Sea, was killed. The country was already known at that time since it was inhabited by the warlike tribes speaking a common language different from the Germanic and Slavic ones and capable of uniting their efforts for the joint campaigns against their neighbours. In the 13th century, Lithuania was already a united state whose ruler Mindaugas was christened and was brought his royal crown from Rome. Nevertheless, the adoption of Christianity lasted another one and a half hundred years during which Lithuania had to defend herself from the armed missionaries, that, in truth, were aggressive subjugators coming from the West. Only in 1410, in the great battle close to Grünwald, the joint forces of two allied states - the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland - defeated the Teutonic Order and halted its Drang nach Osten for a longer period. Lithuania at that time was already extended far into the East, ruled Kiev and the Crimea, collected taxes from Great Novgorod and competed for the sphere of influence with the neighbouring Duchy of Moscow that was known in Europe as Muscovy. These aspects of political history explain why the statehood was and has always been the significant value for the noble and educated society of Lithuania described then and later as the civil nation. The statehood had a well-thought legal form. The famous code of penal and administrative laws, called the Statute of Lithuania, was followed in the vast territories of the Eastern Europe in the 16-18th centuries and united them much earlier than the idea of the European Union emerged. In her territory, Lithuania also sought the implementation of the Church Union, the ecumenism of those times.
In 1791, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth called Republic of the Two Nations adopted the first Constitution in Europe, thus becoming constitutional monarchy, no matter that only for a few years of its existence. In 1795, more powerful neighbours Russia, Germany and Austria destroyed it to the ends and divided among themselves the territories of the formerly united Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Kingdom of Poland. By the way, here we can see a certain precedent for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. The subjugation of the nations was followed by the recurring uprisings in both Lithuania and Poland, usually targeted against extremely heavy Russian oppression. Finally, the cultural resistance of the Lithuanians at the end of the 19th century, when even the Lithuanian language and Lithuanian books were prohibited in the annexed territory of Lithuania, matured an idea and the objective to have the Lithuanian state again in the essentially ethnical lands. Such occasion occurred when the First World War was ended by the downfall of three European empires. The enlightened Lithuanian society, which had convened a one-time congress of delegates, i.e. the Great Seimas of Vilnius as far back as in 1905, now declared not a merely established but historically restored independent state of Lithuania by the unanimous will of its delegates to the Council of Lithuania, on 16 February 1918. By the same act, it was detached from all state relations that had ever existed with other nations. This declaration, which had yet to be defended in the independence wars from Russia and Poland claiming the rule of Lithuania, was consolidated in 1920 by a democratically elected parliament - the Constituent Assembly. The territorial consolidation of the state was especially difficult. The western part of Lithuanian lands that had been separated from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles was appended to the Republic of Lithuania only in 1923. On the other hand, the capital city of Vilnius, including the neighbouring eastern lands, was occupied and annexed in 1920 by Poland for nineteen years. Nevertheless, Lithuania grew stronger and would have successfully overcome internal issues of democracy and evolved into the chosen model of her Scandinavian neighbours if not for the developments of 1939-1940.
The fate of the country and her nation was then determined by the tragic events of the upcoming and the ongoing Second World War. Yet it is also important to note historical background of the new destruction of Lithuania. Neither Germany, nor the Soviet Union missed the opportunity to take to revengeful expansionism, ignoring both international treaties and earlier provided guarantees for the Lithuanian sovereignty. In March 1939, Germany again invaded the western territory of Lithuania, including its only port - Klaipeda region. It happened very soon after Stalin sent a token of proposed friendship to Hitler (which perhaps encouraged a routine aggression). This Soviet concept of new policy within six months turned into a conspiracy treaty describing how to divide Europe by provoking “a new great war” (along with Stalin’s vision). First, they agreed to divide among themselves certain countries named in the secret protocols of 23 August 1939 and situated among both aggressors. Thus, they criminally determined the destiny of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and even eastern Romania, namely Bessarabia, if we follow the geographic map from the North to the South. Following this agreement, Germany and the Soviet Union attacked Poland from two sides. While the USSR invaded Finland soon after, three Baltic States managed to last until June 1940. After the Soviet Army overstepped the borders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, subverted their governments and organised their urgent annexation, i.e. incorporation into the USSR and sovietisation, the period of dependence lasting half a century commenced for the Baltic States.
Thus, during the Second World War, the struggle for freedom of Lithuania and other Baltic States resumed and lasted long after. While their fate was common and the history was painfully depolarising, Lithuania had its own peculiarities.
In 1940-1941, the sovietisation accompanied by repressions on the political, national and social, or so-called “class”, grounds encouraged the unification of patriotic, independence-targeted forces for the organisation of Lithuanian uprising on the first favourable occasion right until the first mass deportations on the eve of the USSR-German war. The occasion was expected to emerge at the beginning of the USSR-German war. The war was launched by the German attack across Lithuania on 22 June 1941, on which and the next day, before the Germans approached, Lithuanian insurgents already had control over the major cities of Kaunas and Vilnius, and declared the restoration of Lithuanian independence and the Interim government. One of the political objectives was to use this action, widely supported by the Lithuanian society, for the underlining of illegality and rejection of the Soviet annexation conducted in 1940.
The insurgents had contacts in Berlin and were aware of the German ban to take to such actions as the declaration of independence. By such disobedience they also demonstrated their moral opposition to the dictatorship of the new upcoming occupant. Germany and its military government (Militärverwaltung) did not recognise the Interim government and after six weeks ordered its dissolution, thus, recognising it in a peculiar negative way. It was also recognised in an even more peculiar way by V. Molotov when he promised to take revenge on Lithuanians in Moscow. The Interim government caught time enough to restore the former national system of local administration, courts and education, declared the law of denationalisation, however, it was kept away from actual executive power by the German military and later civil administration (Ziwilverwaltung). Germany neither recognised the declared restored independence, nor proposed the “alliance” model of Slovakia and Croatia, despite it would have benefited Berlin much more. Therefore, since 1941 the status of the country was simply Lithuania occupied by Reich, and soon after a part of the eastern province Ostland it was creating. Immediately, the Nazi persecution and killings of the Jews ensued and reached its peak already after the liquidation of the Interim government. Special SS “Rollcommandos” sent for their purpose sought also a contribution of local collaborators. The resistance in Lithuania occupied by the German Nazis took the form of underground political activities and boycotts. The allied political structure called the General Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania was established, while in spring 1944 the Lithuanian forces of volunteers were being gathered. It had to resist the returning Soviet military and political power in the hope of quick end of the war and the survival of Lithuania (Finland passed it successfully), however, first they had to disobey and fight the retreating forces of Germans, which destroyed the “Local corps” of Lithuania. Thus, ensued the long-drawn second Soviet occupation that lasted until the restoration of independence in 1990. The Soviets, self-proclaimed liberators, did not retreat after the German capitulation, while the promises of the Atlantic Charter in respect to the Baltic States were not kept. Moreover, the Western allies agreed with Stalin’s demands to transfer to him Königsberg, thus, geopolitically and de facto situating Lithuania and other Baltic States on the Soviet side. (Only the fact that Königsberg, together with the helpless population, was passed for the USSR administration "pending the Peace treaty" could have calmed their conscience.)
The second Soviet occupation was again accompanied by armed violence, penal repressions and coercive sovietisation. The armed resistance arose first in the regions, later in the forests and underground as the united war of the occupied state against the occupant. The united resistance in 1949 was called Lithuanian Movement for the Fight for Freedom, it had its central staff body, military statutes and the press disseminated for the population. It also approved the constitutional principles of independent Lithuania in future. After the retreat of the occupants, the Council chairman of this Movement would have become an interim president and would have had to ensure free democratic election. The residents, especially the inhabitants of the villages turned into kolkhozes, supported the resistance, for which they were cruelly punished by the special Soviet NKVD army and regular units as well as those recruited among local collaborators. The deportation stages closely followed each other; about 150,000 people were deported to remote inclement regions of the USSR in order to prevent them from ever returning. Lithuanian resistance was broken by those measures as well as executions and treasons and in 1954 terminated by the order of the military leaders (the last free Lithuanian soldier was killed only in 1965). This ten-year “war after war” finally was given the appropriate legal evaluation in Lithuania after the restoration of independence: its resistant members became defined as national volunteering soldiers, while the leaders of military districts and central leadership became affirmed retrospectively the only legitimate Lithuanian government of 1944-1954.
Occupation government and the puppet communist structures it appointed even after Stalin’s death persisted in conducting genocide, although not physical as before, except occasional killings, but economic and cultural, to sovietise, colonise and fully absorb Lithuania into the “unified and eternal” Soviet Union. The resistance continued in the cultural and religious freedoms spheres, by occasional protest campaigns such as the self-immolation of the school student R. Kalanta in Kaunas in Spring 1972, dissident press and escapes to the free world (the best-known case was that of sailor Simas Kudirka) and by retaining the pre-war diplomatic representation of independent Lithuania in the democratic West. The significant objective in this regard was to resist the international legitimation of the occupation and this political struggle was not in vain. No state of either the democratic Europe (with a single exception) or both Americas recognised the legality of Lithuania’s annexation. Thanks to the efforts of the dissidents and diplomats, the case of the subjugated Baltic peoples repeatedly emerged in the US Congress and even in the European Parliament in 1983 and later. When the independently elected Lithuanian Parliament adopted legal constitutional acts by declaring the restoration of the state's independence, which happened still under the Soviet military occupation in 1990, the representation of the Republic of Lithuania was still retained in at least three capital cities - Washington, London and Vatican. The rising state could appeal to the Western democracies, which in good faith had not recognised Lithuania’s occupation and transformation into a part of the USSR, asking to naturally recognise her independence!
This was far from easy and simple but first it is important to realise how this legal constitutional restitution could happen at all.
The Soviet Union that demonstrated imperial atrocity in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the territories it ruled directly, that tried to win the Cold War in Africa, Asia and Central America, and that finally unsuccessfully attacked Afghanistan, was inevitably approaching political, economic and moral bankruptcy. The Soviet communist administration that was aware of it drafted the reform plan to save the USSR by rejecting further expansion and confrontation with the West after the economic and armament race was already lost. The said reforms, or perestroika, meant both more liberal economy achieved by gradually transferring the monopoly of the state capital to the "private" hands of the communist elite, and greater freedom of ideas and discussions. It was associated with the name of the new generation leader M. Gorbachev. Western democracies enjoyed the diminishing threat of the world nuclear war, while in the Soviet Union the part of society that retained democratic thinking and appreciated liberties felt that the time had come in history to act. It meant to disclose and reject the mischiefs, demand justice and real changes, including democracy that would change the usurper clan rule of a single “party”. These changes were visible in Moscow and Leningrad, among the students and in the mines of maltreated workers, in a variety of Soviet pseudo-republics and especially in the occupied Baltic States that still remembered Stalin’s tyrannical wrongdoings and their own struggles for freedom.
While perestroika was initiated in 1985, two years later there emerged public protests against the Soviet occupation in the Baltic States (in Vilnius on 23 August 1987, i.e. on the Black Ribbon day), and three mass movements - two People’s Fronts and one Sajudis (Reform Movement) were already formed in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1988.
The Lithuanian Sajudis was born in Vilnius on 03 June 1988 where it was resolved in the meeting of mostly academic and artistic intelligentsia to unite already existing separate initiatives, clubs and circles of human rights, protection of national culture and Lithuanian language, saving of environment, restored historical truth and publicity, preservation of historical and cultural monuments.
It was all based on freedom to discuss in public and raise fundamental requirements for government, including those concerning the change of outdated attitudes and unsuitable officials. Freedom was perceived as the universal freedom of choice, that is, democracy! For the requirements to be weighty, the democratic powers had to be unanimous and supported by the majority of the society. The support groups of Sajudis were being established and spontaneously emerged all round Lithuania; the first independent newspaper Sàjûdþio þinios (Sajudis News) appeared without any applications or permits and woke the true outburst of free press all round Lithuania: its regions, cities and towns. Sajudis used to convene mass meetings of tens and hundred thousands of people where it declared its ideas, plans and requirements, and the government could not stop them, so it more often tried to piggyback instead. The very organisation was treated by the authorities as de facto, however, unregistered for a long time and directly and indirectly threatened with repressions.
The main political events of the period between the end of 1988 and the beginning of 1990 were following: the grand meeting of all Lithuanian representatives (over 250,000 people) organised by Lithuanian Sajudis to commemorate 49 years of Stalin-Hitler conspiracy and all its victims and to state the requirements for the USSR leadership; the Constituent Congress of Sajudis that established the programme-oriented and consistently structured organisation, although it was not yet registered; the Seimas of the members elected by Sajudis (which became a more legitimate representation of the nation than the pseudoparliament appointed by the Communist party) that declared the right and objective of the Lithuanian independence in its session of 15-16 February 1989; the first competitive elections to the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR (Moscow) in Spring of that year that were triumphantly won by Sajudis over the local administrating Communist party; joint front with the analogous mass movements of Latvia and Estonia; joint political struggle with other democrats in two 1989 Congresses of People's Deputies in Moscow; the decision to declare null and void of the so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact voted there by real majority (that would not be possible for the present retrograde Russia); the grand manifestation The Baltic Road of 2.5 million people from Vilnius to Tallinn, demanding their freedom sold 50 year ago, that stunned the world; and the elections to the new national parliaments won in 1990.
Lithuanian Sajudis won the elections at such advantage that it elected its representative to act as a Parliament Chairman and state head by the majority higher than 2/3 against the Communist candidate who was the leader of the local Communist party. In one day the Parliament adopted a set of fundamental legal acts of the restoration of independence.
The last of them was the Interim Constitution that replaced the Constitution of Lithuania of 1938 that had just been reinstated for a short moment. The Soviet constitutions were declared null and void for the Republic of Lithuania. During the voting for the principal act of the continuity and restoration of the independent state, there were no votes against, just six abstainers. The historical state coat of arms was reinstated, the previous anthem and flag of independent Lithuania were approved.
It happened on 11 March 1990. The corresponding legal acts in Estonia and Latvia were adopted respectively on 24 March and 06 May. They differed from the absolute national independence status of Lithuania in that they declared a transition period into the independence as if they were concluded still from the Soviet “republic” point (this ambiguity was annulled by the parliaments of both neighbouring countries only during the putsch in Moscow in August 1991). Lithuania challenged the Kremlin fundamentally, however, at the optimally chosen moment. Right on 12 March, the Third Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR started in Moscow where M. Gorbachev had to be elected as the President (although he had never been elected by the people to act as a deputy!). Therefore, the Kremlin politicians had to mind their own issues instead of perhaps cruelly responding to the Lithuanian decision. Only on 14 March, their Congress declared the resolution and ultimatum stating that the acts of the Lithuanian Parliament were annulled and it was mandatory to obey the “central” authority. The President of the Lithuanian Parliament responded saying that the resolutions of another country's parliament had no power in respect to independent sovereign Lithuania. Thus were set the principal positions and their fundamental divide, determining the dangerous and sometimes bloody international confrontation for the upcoming one and a half years. Its parameters can be defined on a few levels.
Already on 12 March Lithuanian Parliament sent a letter to M. Gorbachev, Chairman of the USSR Parliament, with a proposal to initiate the negotiation for the normalisation of relations. M. Gorbachev’s reply (naturally, not in a letter) was Never! He declared Lithuania to be a part of his state, while Lithuania saw two states and proposed friendly relations. From this point there emerged the first question and Lithuania’s challenge to the surrounding world: two states or one state? The Soviet Communist regime or “the Kremlin" expected to undermine Lithuanian government from inside, first, through its influence on various structures (law enforcement, manufacturing) and important figures of the former establishment, also by demonstrating its armed power and Lithuania’s helplessness; and, finally, a month later initiated the economic blockade. The Kremlin put quite an effort to maintain the diplomatic blockade of Lithuania, too.
The Soviet Union and personally M. Gorbachev used all their substantial international influence to prevent the Western countries from recognising the restored independence of Lithuania. Lithuanian Parliament immediately received official recognising congratulations from the parliaments of Canada and Poland, and even the Soviet-type parliament of the Moldavian SSR voted in favour of recognising the restored independence of Lithuania. Australian Foreign Affairs Minister personally congratulated Lithuania with recognition slightly hastily. Especially lively debates took place in French National Assembly. The first reaction of the US White House was quite positive, however, it soon became chillier. It became apparent that so far democratic governments, considering the Soviet pressure, would not make any essential step for the restoration of bilateral diplomatic relations. M. Gorbachev’s team used two principal clout levers: 1) The recognition of Lithuania would cause “domino effect” in the Soviet Union and the latter’s downfall with gruesome global aftermath; furthermore, various separatists of the Western countries would follow the Lithuanian example (the same rhetoric is now used for the Kosovo case); 2) The recognition of Lithuania would severely undermine M. Gorbachev’s prestige and his reforms; the hardliners would take over the power, etc., and thus the nicely designed New World Order would collapse. The diplomatic war of Lithuania against this USSR diplomacy became the priority task of defence. In the meantime, the democratic institutions were being set up following the newly-adopted laws of the independent state.
The visits and meetings of Lithuanian Prime Minister and the supreme state official, President of Parliament, with the heads of states and governments of Norway, Iceland, Canada, USA, United Kingdom, France, Germany, also in Prague and Moscow, significantly contributed to the objective to receive full-fledged renewed recognition. M. Gorbachev had to give up and initiate negotiations, although in the meantime he planned an armed attack. On his return from a visit in Prague on the invitation of Czech President Havel, the head of Lithuanian Parliament and the State had a secret meeting with Boris Yeltsin, the leader of new democratic Russia, in Moscow where they discussed the future relations of Lithuania and Russia.
On 12 May 1990, the Baltic States restored their pre-war tripartite Concord unity in Tallinn and further acted as the Council of the Baltic States appealing to both the USSR concerning the normalisation of relations, and the international organisations so that they could hold their legitimate positions as the former members of the League of Nations. In summer 1990, the three heads of the Baltic States met with Boris Yeltsin in Riga seaside to begin the drafting of bilateral treaties with the Russian Federation bypassing USSR “centre”.
In the West, the main arenas for the diplomatic activities of Lithuanians were located in Washington and Paris, and especially in smaller, first of all, Nordic countries. Czechoslovakia and Iceland volunteered their territories as neutral locations and services for the negotiations of Lithuania and the USSR. Paris proposed the same to Moscow. In Autumn, French President in his conversation with the head of Lithuania declared that the gold of the first Republic of Lithuania, preserved in the Bank of France, belongs to restored Lithuania, thus, recognising the continuity of the state. The Soviets had to revoke the economic blockade installed on Lithuania in April. The Baltic States knocked at Paris Summit meeting and their ministers of foreign affairs were asked to leave the premises of the Conference only on the ultimative demand of M. Gorbachev. At the end of December, the Icelandic Parliament Althingi reminded the preserved recognition of Lithuania as the sign to its government. Lithuania had already informed the Kremlin that starting from 01 January 1991 it would completely withdraw from the budgetary and taxation system of the USSR. The empire decided to wait no longer as it already planned an armed attack.
The events of the beginning of January 1991 turned into the fateful challenge for all: for Lithuania, Soviet Union, the West and all democratic world. The Soviets attempted at imitating the overthrow of the independence government by the hands of the allegedly unsatisfied people, at the same time redeploying special armed forces, and on the night from the 12th to the 13th of January they launched an armed attack. They expected overnight success, while the Persian Gulf War should have overshadowed it all. Fourteen people were killed and a hundreds of peaceful, unarmed freedom defenders were injured in Vilnius while shielding the television buildings and the Parliament with their bodies. The international protests followed by huge demonstrations supporting Lithuania in Russia as well as the solidarity of Russian President Yeltsin with the Baltic States determined the retreat of the Kremlin and the tragic victory of Lithuania. The Soviet violence in Riga also suffered a failure, while the attack in Tallinn was revoked. (They say that the Chechen commander of the deployed Soviet forces, Air Force general D. Dudayev, who later became the President of freedom-seeking Chechnya, had a hand in this.) The European Parliament condemned the actions of the USSR in Vilnius as aggression and invasion, thus, showing its attitude towards Lithuania as a sovereign state. Iceland sent its Minister of Foreign Affairs J. B. Hannibalsson to Vilnius, while the Althingi resolved to restore diplomatic relations and informed Lithuanian government about this. The bilateral declaration of relation restoration was being drafted since February. The diplomatic blockade of the Kremlin began collapsing. After the USSR cancelled purportedly initiated negotiations with Lithuania, the real negotiations with the Russian Federation were held and successfully completed in Moscow on 29 July by signing the Treaty on the Basics of Interstate Relations (its ratified documents were exchanged in Vilnius on 04 May 1992). By this agreement Russia recognised the state of Lithuania restored on 11 March 1990 and condemned the annexation of Lithuania carried out by the Soviets in 1940. It was a blow for the Kremlin that is exercising its difficulty until now, and Soviet response came two days later with the savage murder of seven detained Lithuanian officers at the border of Lithuania and the USSR. However, this way the USSR was fast approaching its own collapse through the failed putsch on 19-21 August, after which Lithuania and other Baltic States were immediately internationally recognised both in the West and in the East with the restoration of bilateral diplomatic relations. On 17 September 1991, they were accepted to the UNO. That is how the restoration of the independence of the Baltic States was conducted by employing peaceful diplomatic and political measures. There emerged the next immediate task to get rid of the former occupation army that entered the jurisdiction of Russia at the end of the year. In this respect Lithuania had more experience, employed favourable attitude of Yeltsin and after the diplomatic breakthrough at Helsinki Summit of the CSCE on 09-10 July 1992, it signed, in Moscow on 08 September 1992, the agreement with Russia concerning the withdrawal of Russian units within one year only. And this was accomplished! The Russian Army left Lithuania before it left Poland, Germany, Latvia and Estonia. In September 1993, Rome Pope John Paul II visited free Lithuania.
As early as in 1992, during the reform of its economy, Lithuania joined the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and introduced its temporary currency, thus leaving the post-Soviet rouble zone. The international treaties regulated the relations not only with neighbouring Russia, but also with Belarus, Poland and Germany; Lithuania began its approach to the Council of Europe, European Community and NATO. The EU and NATO memberships became the new national priority targets. They were as directly related to the ensuring of national security as the restoration of Lithuanian Army and its formation on the new principles coordinated with NATO.
The geopolitical view of the process reveals that it helped both Finland and Sweden to conduct fully independent foreign policy and consistently join the European Union. That stood as an example for other three Baltic States on the eastern shore of Mare nostrum.
Thus the Baltic Sea too recovered its previous status as the “Northern Mediterranean” Sea, conceptually turning from a de facto Russian sea into a European sea. Here again emerged the reborn eastern littoral states with their marine issues and borders as well as economic areas. As well as their ports, the “loss” of which still emotionalize Russia to gain them in new ways.
As early as in 1991, the Council of the Baltic States raised important questions of the Second World War that remained in the “sea”. This was an invitation to declare this area free from nuclear weapon and globally address the danger raised by the huge quantities of sunk German chemical weapon that is rusting and threatening the coastal nations with real ecocidal catastrophe. Lithuania, like some other countries, made attempts to stress the necessity of Kaliningrad demilitarisation. All these security concerns remain unresolved today. The German-Russian project Nord Stream has even further exacerbated the threat of lethally contaminating the shallow sea bed with chemical industrial sediments and disturbed bombs. It simultaneously opened the prospect for Russia to militarise, de facto annex the international areas of the Baltic Sea under the new pretext of protecting the pipeline, once it commissioned its navy to protect the oil drill next to the Lithuanian border in 2002. However, these voices of concern were not taken into account as well.
Starting from the end of 1993 when consensus of the major parties was reached in Lithuania encouraging the President's appeal to join NATO, both Euro-atlantic processes were in the midst of political struggle and manoeuvre. It took ten years that were perceived as the continuation of struggle for freedom from the post-Soviet Russia’s claims to dictate and dominate. Both the European Union and NATO had their own doubts and specific requirements for Lithuania’s “homework”. But next to it all, there was always Russia that like in M. Gorbachev’s times promised to all new era (the West eagerly announced the end of the Cold War), however, almost under condition that Russia and its “legitimate concerns” in regard to the Baltic States would be respected.
Russia claimed imaginary rights to the “near abroad” and “post-Soviet area”, therefore, Lithuania was forced to persistently reject them on any possible occasion and remind the West that she had not been a “Soviet republic” but instead a state occupied by the USSR. Russia also attempted at imposing on us just one priority choice, that is, European Union and its "soft security", so that NATO would stay away as an unnecessary “antagonising” or provocation of Russia. (Today, Georgia and Ukraine find themselves in the same position.) Lithuania has never accepted this attitude stressing that it had two priority objectives and sought both simultaneously. Nevertheless, if NATO would accept Lithuania earlier, that would be fine, too.
The path of the self-liberated Lithuania, after its restoration of international affairs, into the EU started by the Agreement on Trade and Commercial and Economic Cooperation signed on 11 May 1992. A Free Trade Agreement was signed with the European Community on 18 July 1994. A year later in 1995, it became an integral part of our Europe Agreement. This was an agreement that consolidated the associated membership of Lithuania in the European Union and her recognised candidature for the full-fledged membership. Lithuania became involved in the EU strategy for Central and East European countries. It has to be noted that at the same time, i.e. at the beginning of 1994, Lithuania submitted her accession application to NATO, however, throughout 1995 it was not clear whether the Alliance will not falter due to the Russian pressure that the Baltic States should not be invited and accepted, but instead should remain in the Russian sphere of influence. Although Lithuania attained full withdrawal of the Russian Army already by 01 September 1993, this Army stayed in Latvia a couple years longer, while in Kaliningrad Region it is still deployed and ostentatiously modernised as a means of pressure for the neighbouring countries. Russia used to regularly renew its demands to sign a military transit agreement with Lithuania, yet Lithuania managed to avoid it. Sending military transit to Kaliningrad, she applies interim rules that are annually extended. Thus, Lithuania did not block her road to NATO, but, on the contrary, continued it by participating in the Partnership for Peace and seeking Membership Action Plan. The prospects were enhanced by the development of friendly relations with Poland, a prospective member of NATO and the EU, consummated by the joint Assembly of both parliaments (from 1997) and the strategic partnership. The quadripartite Charter of Partnership among the Baltic States and the USA became an important factor consolidating the NATO membership as the “common goal".
A breakthrough came in 1997 and the NATO summit in Madrid named Baltic States as those seeking Alliance membership, while the US Congress started to allocate funds for our readiness. In the meantime, three high ranking US Army retirees of Lithuanian origin came to assist Lithuania. One of them became army chief commander. Then the development of a real, western-type army complying with NATO standards went apace. Lithuania’s involvement in the international peacekeeping operations was increasing. Now she has undertaken a duty to protect Afghanistan and the restoration of the entire Ghor province. But first, on 23 November 2002, the US President G.W.Bush brought good news to Lithuania in Vilnius on his way from Prague where NATO summit confirmed that the Baltic States are adequately prepared and invited to the Alliance. From now on “anyone who would choose Lithuania as an enemy has also made an enemy of the United States of America,” he said to the applauding people in the Town Hall Square of Old Vilnius. The majority took it as a real guarantee of freedom from the Eastern aggression.
On 08 December 1998, Lithuania submitted an official application for the EU membership. These were difficult times since the Russian financial crisis also affected Lithuania, more than its neighbours. Lithuanian GDP went down. The unemployment rate increased (and kept increasing until 2001), while the export declined (it recovered and started to grow in 2000). Despite these obstacles Lithuania fulfilled the objectives of the EU pre-accession, solved the most difficult - as it seemed at first - and very extraordinary problem: the perspective closure of the nuclear plant in Ignalina with the support of the EU and its member states. International agreements were reached on this issue and the necessary, although unpopular, legal instruments were adopted in the country. Following these instruments, one of the reactors is already stopped, while the other should be stopped in 2009. If the EU does not agree to interpret the Accession Treaty with Lithuania more flexibly, a complicated period of energy provision and increased dependence on Russia awaits this new member state after 2009. Already in 2002, before the Lithuania’s accession to the organisation, Russian diplomats put great efforts to make the EU grant Russia the exceptions of transit to Kaliningrad (corridor, visa-free regime) violating Lithuania’s sovereignty. The European Union stood its ground then. The year 2003 became the period of great crucial solutions such as the successful referendum concerning the EU membership, signing and ratification of the Europe Agreement. In 2004, Lithuania became full member of both NATO and the European Union, and the first elections to the European Parliament took place. Lithuania was the first to ratify the Constitution for Europe, while after the failure of this project it ratified Lisbon Agreement in 2008.
The presence of Lithuania in the European Union provides her an opportunity to make her contribution to the common goal of peace and welfare, as well as to leave post-Soviet, in principle colonial, backwardness, and meet the new challenges of the 21st century. Those are energy, demographic, climate and moral challenges. The new short-sighted Russian expansionism is the main challenge. It concerns and will concern not only Lithuania, but the entire Europe. At the same time, it is easy to see Russian efforts to disrupt the consolidation and solidarity of the European Union by its actions targeted against separate member states. Lithuania will also have to undergo this realising that there will be no freedom from this kind of threats for a long time yet. Everybody should hope that the EU will not want to sacrifice its dignity and identity to undemocratic external country and that Lithuania will not lose those values herself. Now they have a joint destiny.
