Lithuania’s new government is not expected to make any major changes in foreign policy, LRT reports. Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius named regional security, Baltic cooperation, and strengthening ties with the US as his priorities, BNS and The Baltic Times reported. The government calls for a more united Europe, while maintaining strategic partnerships with Germany, Poland, and the Nordic countries. Also, Lithuania will continue to pursue closer ties with countries in the Indo-Pacific region. At the same time, the government will seek to normalise relations with China. While the Lithuanian Union of Farmers and Greens (LVZS) has pushed the issue, the ruling Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) has insisted that the government would not make concessions to China. Moreover, Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys downplayed the importance of the issue. However, Lithuanian foreign policy analysts do not expect Lithuania to return to the earlier conservative-led government’s “value-based foreign policy” if relations with China are normalised, LRT reported.
On relations with neighbouring Belarus, both Budrys and Sinkevicius, as well as Paulius Baltokas, domestic policy adviser to President Gitanas Nauseda, and Juozas Olekas, speaker of the Lithuanian parliament, the Seimas, all assured that Lithuania’s policy remained unchanged, LRT and BNS reported. The new government programme contains some softer language than before on Belarus, according to BNS. Speaking in an interview with Ziniu Radijas, Budrys said that Lithuania would press for additional sanctions as long as Belarus continued hybrid threats and various actions against Lithuania. Also, the new government pledged more pressure on Belarus if it continues to support Russia’s war against Ukraine or carries out hybrid attacks against the EU or Ukraine. Olekas stated that Lithuania could only discuss easing sanctions against Belarus after democratic changes in the country, BNS reported. Meanwhile, Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya urged Lithuania’s new government to maintain a principled policy towards Belarus, BNS reported.