Economic losses await Belarus if it refuses to transport goods through the port of Klaipeda, said Lithuanian Minister of Economy and Innovation Rimantas Sinkevicius. So he commented on the words of Alexander Lukashenko about the intention to reorient trade flows from Lithuanian ports.
“Belarusian cargo in Klaipeda port is about 30%. Therefore, when deciding to refuse the carriage of cargo, Belarus must calculate the economic losses and assess the commercial benefits that the port of Klaipeda provides. Belarus should also take into account that if it makes this economically unprofitable decision, it will punish itself, as this will have a significant impact on the country's economy, ”Sputnik Lithuania quoted Sinkevicius as saying.
The Minister of Economy of the Republic added that if Belarus officially refuses to transit goods through Klaipeda, the EU countries may impose retaliatory sanctions against Minsk. However, Sinkevicius added that it is too early to introduce restrictive measures, and they should be applied against individuals, and not the entire economy of Belarus. At the same time, according to him, Lithuanian entrepreneurs are not in danger.
The other day a similar position will be voiced by the Prime Minister of Lithuania - Saulius Skvernelis. He stated that Lukashenka allegedly “hates his nation” by making such decisions.
“If the decisions that Lukashenka spoke about today are made, Belarus will be the first to suffer,” RIA Novosti quotes the Lithuanian prime minister.
Lithuanian politicians make inadequate statements, since the EU is based on the principles of a market economy, Nikolai Mezhevich, chief researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in a commentary to RT.
“This means that a manufacturer of goods can produce products for sale in any country that is ready to buy these goods, and a service provider has the right to provide or not provide services depending on its domestic legislation and on a political decision,” the expert recalled.
“The statements of the Lithuanian side are a rare concentration of economic infantilism and political amateurism, because it offers sanctions for the fact that the Republic of Belarus as an independent state wants to change the geography of its export relations,” Mezhevich explained.
Sanction response
On August 28, Alexander Lukashenko announced the reorientation of freight traffic from Poland and Lithuania as a response to possible sanctions from the EU.
“Now we will show them what sanctions are. If they (Poland and Lithuania) were patrolling through us to China and Russia, now they will fly either through the Baltic or the Black Sea to trade with Russia, etc. And for sanctioned products (for those products on which Russia has imposed an embargo) - even if they don't dream. We will show them what sanctions are, ”BelTA news agency quoted Lukashenka as saying.
- President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko
- Reuters
- © Sergei Sheleg / BelTA
The President of Belarus said that European countries are mistaken, hoping to intimidate Minsk.
“I instructed the government to submit a proposal to reorient all trade flows from Lithuanian ports to others. So we'll see how they will live. 30% of the Lithuanian budget is formed by our cargo traffic through Lithuania. What else does? Got sick. Therefore, we will put it in place, ”Lukashenka stressed.
Let us remind you that in early August presidential elections were held in Belarus, in which, according to the Central Election Commission of the republic, the current head of state, Alexander Lukashenko, won, gaining 80.1% of the vote.
Opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya won 10.12% of the vote, while she refused to recognize the election results. After that, protest actions of those who disagreed with this result began throughout the country. Soon Tihanovskaya left for Lithuania, where she is now.
In turn, the EU countries declared the elections in Belarus illegitimate and announced the possible introduction of sanctions against Minsk. It should be noted that Lithuania and Poland (together with Ukraine they make up the so-called Lublin Triangle) since the beginning of the political crisis in Belarus have actively tried to intervene in the situation, offering some kind of mediation in the dialogue between the opposition and the country's authorities.
In addition, Poland, Lithuania and other Baltic countries are actively insisting on the introduction of European sanctions against Minsk and are themselves adopting their own packages of restrictive measures. Thus, on August 26, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry prepared a sanctions list, which included 118 officials of Belarus, including Alexander Lukashenko himself. They will be banned from entering Lithuania and frozen assets in the country's financial institutions.
Mirror effect
Experts emphasize that by imposing sanctions against Belarus, Lithuania is repeating the mistake that has already been made in relation to Russia. After 2014, Lithuania joined the sanctions against Moscow. In response, the Russian side limited the transit of goods through the Klaipeda port. Lithuania also completely lost the Russian market for its dairy and meat industries.
In addition, Russia is building a port in Ust-Luga, the throughput of which, according to the builders, will be up to 140 million tons of various cargoes per year. After the terminal is put into operation, Moscow will abandon the use of the ports of the Baltic countries for the export of mineral fertilizers, coal, grain, rolled metal and timber, which will lead to annual multibillion-dollar losses for the economies of the Baltic states.
- Klaipeda port in Lithuania
- globallookpress.com
- © Holger Hollemann / dpa
Thus, if Belarus also abandons freight traffic through Klaipeda, Lithuania itself will suffer even more, and not Minsk, since the contribution of the transit industry to the Lithuanian economy is at least 8-13% of GDP, Nikolai Mezhevich noted.
“From the outside it seems that 8-13% of GDP is nonsense, but in reality it is like falling dominoes. For example, the railway will not be loaded, and accordingly, problems begin in the sectors serving it, up to the printing house that prints order forms. Logistics firms, intermediary structures, vehicle fleets and others will be affected. By doing this, Lithuania not only stepped on a rake, it managed to fall into its own geopolitical toilet, ”the political scientist stressed.
For example, Estonia does not have such dependence, because there is no common border with Belarus, there are no significant economic ties, but Latvia and Lithuania, which is the main transit country, do, Mezhevich recalled.
In turn, Vladimir Olenchenko, senior researcher at the Center for European Studies, IMEMO RAS, in a conversation with RT, noted that the statements of the Lithuanian authorities can be regarded as an attempt to exert economic pressure on Belarus.
“On the one hand, Lithuania would like to act as a teacher of democracy for Belarus, which is called interference in the internal affairs of the state, and on the other, it is interested in the transit of Belarusian goods through the port of Klaipeda, for which Belarusian cargo is of great importance,” the political scientist explained.
At the same time, commenting on the words of the Minister of Economy Sinkevichus, Olenchenko recalled that no one had authorized Lithuania to speak on behalf of the EU.
“Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel, Josep Borrell can speak on behalf of the European Union, the rest do not have the right to make any statements on behalf of the EU. In addition, sanctions are adopted by consensus. Therefore, the current statements of Vilnius demonstrate that Lithuania either misunderstands its role in the EU, or exaggerates its importance. These statements are a bluff and a statement that the republic largely depends on foreign economic relations with Belarus. And if Lithuania loses Belarusian import and export cargo, it will simply have nothing to fill the resulting vacuum with, ”the expert concluded.