In the evening of April 14 Federal Minister of Defence Dr Ursula von der Leyen arrived in Lithuania for an official visit. The guest was met by Minister of National Defence Juozas Olekas at Vilnius International Airport.
On April 15 the Ministers will discuss the security situation in the region, Germany’s participation in military exercises held in Lithuania, establishment of the NATO Force Integration Unit (NFIU) in Lithuania, acquisition of weaponry, and other points of Lithuanian-German security and defence cooperation.
Germany will have deployed one company with military equipment in Lithuania by July. It will join the combined training with Lithuanian, U.S. and Portuguese soldiers. Another group of German military personnel will arrive in Lithuania in autumn to take part in Exercise Iron Wolf. The total of over 500 German soldiers is expected to come to Lithuania this year.
“We are genuinely grateful to the Federal Minister of Defence for the attention to our region and will do our best to provide as good training conditions for German soldiers as possible. Political and military support from Germany is an extremely important factor in ensuring our security,” J. Olekas said.
The Defence Ministers also addressed the establishment of the NATO Force Integration Units (NFIUs) and deployment of the NATO Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF). The German guest informed about her country’s plans to post military personnel to the NFIUs to be established in the Baltic States and other Eastern European countries.
“Ensuring security and defence in the region is not only a concern of NATO allies, but primarily of Lithuania itself. Accordingly, Lithuania began consistently increasing defence financing over the several past years, it is expected to reach 1.46 pct. of GDP next year,” J. Olekas.
According to the Minister of National Defence, one of the priority areas of defence capacity building is increasing the strength of the Lithuanian Land Force.
“Federal Defence Minister and I discussed the possibility for Lithuania to buy Panzerhaubitze 2000 (PzH 2000) self-propelled artillery systems from Germany and we have received a positive answer. That allows us to begin concrete negotiations in May that, let’s hope, will lead us to acquisition of the so-needed capabilities in the nearest future,” the Lithuanian Minister of National Defence said.
Lithuania is also looking into the possibility of acquiring infantry fighting vehicles from a German manufacturer.
According to J.Olekas, Lithuania is interested in developing joint acquisition projects with Germany so that our soldiers would not only regularly train together but would also use similar weaponry.