Male Sr. sp. Photo by Ieva Budzeikaits/Lithuanian Army.
As business encourages the public and politicians to agree to allocate 4% of the gross domestic product (GDP) to defense, the authors of the 4 percent initiative urge the government to start discussions on higher defense funding as soon as possible.
In 23 days, our initiative collected more than 50,000 qualified electronic signatures. (…) we shared the petition with the responsible institutions this morning. Our next hope is to initiate meetings with the institutions as soon as possible and start a discussion on how the initiative can be turned into reality as soon as possible, 4 percent board chairman Mantas Mikuckas said at the press conference on Monday.
On Monday morning, 51,600 residents signed the petition, which wants to urge politicians to agree on 4% of GDP funding for defense as soon as possible.
This is a real, civic public initiative that must be read and taken seriously, M. Mikuckas told journalists.
The petition is forwarded to the President, the Seimas and the Government, and in the near future the initiators will meet with the President, the heads of the Seimas and the Government and hand over the collected votes.
Andrius Romanovskis, president of the Lithuanian Business Confederation, says that business calls on politicians to agree on a principled strategic decision.
Our hope is that the political parties will agree on 2%, as they agreed on 3%, and agree on 4% without any preconditions and move towards that goal, said A. Romanovskis at the press conference on Monday.
According to him, it is possible to discuss a specific source of funding once it has been agreed that 4% of GDP should be allocated to surveillance.
Let’s agree on 4%, let’s get the national political party to agree and let’s move forward. (…) by raising debates, allegations, defenses, whether by one or another percentage (there should be an increase in some fees for the defense of the BNS), we are moving away from the essence. The essence is a strategic consensus regarding 4%, says A. Romanovskis.
Giedr Kaminskait-Salters, head of the telecommunications company Telia Lietuva, said that the 4 percent initiative is taking place at a historic moment when businesses stand up and say they want higher fees.
According to her, the business will choose to pay higher taxes due to defense in order to protect its investments in Lithuania, as well as its employees.
it is remarkable that (4 percent for the BNS initiative) the biggest competitors united, she said.
According to Vidmantas Januleviius, president of the Confederation of Lithuanian Industrialists, the aim of this initiative is for politicians to agree on faster defense financing.
According to him, oil industry representatives, in addition to agreeing to pay higher taxes, may send workers for a week for military training. Such an initiative for business, according to him, costs about 1.5 billion. Eur.
We agree for a week, with divided schedules, each individual employee will assign the respective employees who will be a soldier, who will protect the lake, who will work in the back yard, who will work as nurses, who will work in logistics, V. Januleviius told journalists.
4 percent was initiated at the end of March by the support organization for Ukraine Blue/Yellow, telecommunications mons Telia Lietuva, Bit Lietuva, Tele2, startups Tesonet and Vinted, Teltonikos moni grup, other well-known Lithuanian mons.
We can already see, (…) we can find the means, and how is it possible to increase Lithuania’s defense potential quickly, fairly cheaply and very easily, Blue/Yellow manager Jonas Ohmanas spoke at the press conference.
In March, the government proposed four defense financing alternatives, which were debated by business and employee representatives for several weeks, and presented to the politicians for their proposals.
Politicians want to increase defense financing to 3% of GDP in order to create divisions in the army faster, to accept a German brigade in Lithuania by 2027 and to prepare for general growth.
The government has also decided to establish a special fund, where donations for defense will be collected for higher taxes, residents can also donate to it.
Prime Minister Ingrida Imonyt said earlier that politicians and social partners are getting close to an agreement on several means of increasing financial defense, including a higher profit tax rate. She later mentioned that there could be discussions about increasing the tax by 1.5 or 2 percent. points.
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