A.Skaisgirytė: Lithuania offered sanctions to include Astravus in exchange for fertilizers, but it failed

While testifying on Monday to the Seimas commission investigating the story of the State Security Department (SSD) reporter regarding the position of the Presidency on the issue of sanctions on Belarusian fertilizers, A. Skaisgirytė said that the opinions of the EU countries differed at the expert level at the beginning of the negotiations – several countries spoke against sanctions on fertilizers, and one was categorically against sanctions on nuclear energy .

According to A.Skaisgirytė, at that time it was planned to propose to the country advocating sanctions against Astravas that Lithuania would abandon the demand for sanctions on fertilizers if this country changed its position regarding the Astravas nuclear power plant.

The presidential adviser did not name the parties, saying it was classified information. At the Commission’s request, she promised to provide a classified answer and to name the country she wanted to talk to for the exchange, as well as all correspondence between the Presidency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) regarding sanctions against Belarus.

Also, the commission, which did not receive a response from President Gitanas Nausėda to the invitation to testify before the commission, decided to send the questions to him in writing.

Advisor: A negative response was received regarding Astrav

A.Skaisgirytė named the mentioned exchange option as one of the negotiation steps in the initial negotiation stage, and if such an option failed, according to her, there was a return to the full list of sanctions.

“The mood in Brussels was that when the European External Action Service proposed to sanction seven areas, some countries strongly opposed the fertilizer sector, one in particular, saying it would distort the whole fertilizer market, one country opposed nuclear energy. Lithuanian diplomats then had an instruction to raise the issue of sanctioning the nuclear sector from the expert group, but one country strongly opposed it”, said A.Skaisgirytė at the commission meeting.

“And then there was an idea that seemed like it could be tried, because one country that was against the nuclear sector was also against fertilizers, such an agreement that we support them on fertilizers and they support Astrav. At that time, the inclusion of nuclear (energy – BNS) in the sanctions seemed to be a greater diplomatic victory,” said the adviser.

According to her, since the mentioned country categorically did not agree with such an option, this idea was abandoned, and the most popular phrase from the correspondence between diplomats and representatives of the Presidency “we want fertilizers out, AAE (Astravos atomic power plant – BNS) in” is from this stage of negotiations and was removed from context.

When asked how the proposal to the mentioned country was specifically named, A. Skaisgirytė said that they were asked if there were any possibilities for it to withdraw from the “veto” for the nuclear sector, but the answer was categorically negative.

According to A.Skaisgirytė, the president always said that sanctions should be introduced on a wide scale and as soon as possible, they should be effective”.

A.Skaisgirytė also stated that the disagreements between the Presidency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) regarding sanctions on Belarusian fertilizers are emphasized, and the positions really differed not on fundamental issues, but on tactics.

“Both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the president’s advisers agreed quite clearly that the sanctions should be as large as possible, covering as many sectors as possible, there were no disagreements about this. Regarding tactical matters, we did not propose a highly approved position, but a working diplomatic action, but that action turned out to be impossible because of that other country,” the adviser said.

“And that’s all: when that action turned out to be impossible, we realized that we are going with what we have, we stated that we failed to put the core, but because of this we do not stop the rest of the sectors that are on the list,” added A.Skaisgirytė.

V. Bakas: the commission will check the information regarding the exchange

Chairman of the Seimas commission Vytautas Bakas notes that in the aforementioned testimony, A.Skaisgirytė confirmed that the Presidency was in favor of removing fertilizers from the sanctions package during one of the negotiation stages, but, according to him, he provided an explanation – the commission will check it.

“Our task is to find out why the Presidency objected to the introduction of sanctions on Belarusian business, and today the adviser confirmed that the president’s advisers wrote those letters, but she explained why it was done, an attempt was made to make an exchange, to leave the fertilizer (aside from BNS) and in return to convince member states of the European Union to impose sanctions on atomic energy”, V. Bakas told journalists after the commission meeting.

He noted that until now such exchanges were not known to the commission, none of the MFA representatives or other officials who testified to the commission mentioned them.

“It was the first time such arguments were made, of course we will try to find out how sincere such arguments are, of course we have no reason to believe the adviser, she is an official official, we asked for additional information that would reveal the intentions of the Presidency”, said V. Bakas.

Presidential adviser Jarek Niewierowicz, who testified to the commission on Monday, said that he did not direct the issue of sanctions, but only gathered information about the possible impact with his group, which he missed from the government.

According to him, these issues were discussed at the level of diplomats and the answer that the mentioned country does not agree to compromise on Astravo was conveyed from Brussels by Lithuanian diplomats.

“Our aim was to assess the maximum impact on Lithuanian companies, railways, the seaport, the impact that would be directly on income, profit, taxes and the context that was relevant, that is, the fact that our neighbors were very actively competing with the Lithuanian transport sector at the time”, – said J. Niewierowicz.

“The problem was that the Government did not do this assessment and we had to repeat and ask for an impact assessment, because we got the impression that the Government or certain ministries, especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, operate without such assessments and cannot say how such risks would be controlled. We didn’t have that part at all, in my personal opinion, it was a problem,” said the adviser.

MFA: The Presidency was the only one against sanctions on fertilizers

The Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jonas Survila, previously testified to the commission that the Presidency was the only Lithuanian institution that doubted the expediency of sanctions on Belarusian fertilizers.

He said that after the Belarusian regime took over the plane flying from Athens to Vilnius in May 2021 and landed it in Minsk, Lithuania began to assemble a coalition to impose sanctions on Belarus. At that time, the Presidency spoke out against sanctions specifically for the fertilizer sector.

Representatives of the Presidency have repeatedly stated that a few years ago, when considering sanctions on Belarusian fertilizers, the Presidency wanted to assess their damage to the Lithuanian economy.

A. Skaisgirytė has stated that when considering sanctions, it was necessary to anticipate the damage of sanctions to the Lithuanian transport sector. According to her, the state-owned “Lietuvos Geležinkeliai” and Klaipėda Port suffered from the sanctions, and the Presidency was concerned with how to minimize the damage to these state-owned companies.

The media previously announced that in 2021, when coordinating positions on sanctions against Belarus, the Presidency was against sanctions on fertilizers.

The news portal “Delfi” quoted excerpts from the correspondence of the president’s advisers with the diplomats of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one of which contained the phrase “we want fertilizers out, AAE (Astravos nuclear power station – BNS) in”.

Commenting on the situation, the Presidency then said that the fragments of internal working correspondence do not reflect the final joint position agreed with the Government.

Eventually, both the EU and the United States imposed sanctions on Belarusian fertilizers, and their transit through Lithuania stopped.