Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda will make efforts to ensure that Germany’s brigade is deployed to Lithuania by 2026, according to his chief foreign policy adviser, Asta Skaisgiryte, BNS reports. Germany’s chief of defence, General Carsten Breuer, said that Germany would begin deploying the brigade in early 2024. Nauseda met with Breuer in Vilnius to discuss…
Estonia’s GDP will decline by 1.8% in 2023 and grow by 1.5% in 2024, according to SEB Bank’s latest forecast, ERR reports. The average unemployment rate will reach 6.5% in 2023 and 6.9% in 2024, the bank projects. Mihkel Nestor, chief economist at SEB, noted that the outlook for the Estonian economy has deteriorated in…
Latvia’s United List has rejected an offer from prime minister-designate Evika Silina to form a four-party coalition government with New Unity, the Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS), and the Progressives, LSM reports. Edgars Tavars, head of the United List’s parliamentary group, said that his group would propose another coalition model instead, with Silina still…
The Lithuanian government does not plan to close more checkpoints on the border with Belarus in the near future, Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte announced, LRT reports. However, she said that the possibility to do so remained, given that security threats persisted. A complete closure of the Belarus border would only be done in coordination with…
Latvia’s Ministry of Transport supports the resumption of passenger train traffic between Latvia and Lithuania, LSM reports. The ministry said that the priority was reopening the route from Riga via Daugavpils to Vilnius. The Latvian and Lithuanian passenger train operators, Pasazieru Vilciens (PV) and LTG Link, have drawn up various options for routes, operators, and…
Estonia’s Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, has refused to attend a joint session of the state budget and the anti-corruption select committees of the Estonian parliament, the Riigikogu, on 29 August 2023, ERR reports. The committees will hold an extraordinary joint meeting to discuss the operations of Estonian businesses in Russia. Kallas has come under heavy…
The Baltic States and Poland have agreed to close their borders with Belarus in the event of a “critical incident” involving the Russian private military company, Wagner Group, Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski announced, TVP World reports. Following their meeting in Warsaw, the Baltic and Polish interior ministers demanded that Belarus expel the Wagner mercenaries…
Germany will begin deploying a brigade to Lithuania in early 2024, Germany’s Chief of Defence, General Carsten Breuer, announced, LRT reports. Speaking at a new conference in Vilnius, Breuer said that a roadmap for the deployment would be ready by the end of the third quarter of 2023. He said that a basic decision to…
The number of non-cash payments in Latvia totalled 394.2mn in the first half of 2023, which was 10% more than in the same period of 2022, the Bank of Latvia reported. The total value of non-cash payments amounted to EUR 150.7bn, which was up 26% from a year earlier. The average number of payments was…