New Delhi: India has a key role in shaping the global order and in the organisation of international relations, Laimonas Talat-Kelpša, political director at the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told ThePrint. Talat-Kelpša added that in terms of bilateral ties, it is time to “think” about creating a structure for the technological and scientific cooperation between India and Lithuania.
In an exclusive interview with ThePrint Wednesday, the Lithuanian foreign secretary said, “India’s role here, in our view, is giving voice to the importance of values and principles in organising state-to-state relations and how international politics functions. I mean, I sometimes underestimated the key role that India has.”
He gave the example of India’s diplomacy with Ukraine and Russia amid the war. “We saw last year how much of recalibration of the global narrative happened when Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi made those visits to Russia and Ukraine…I haven’t faced any situation where it would prompt me to believe India would validate territorial acquisitions through force. I don’t see this happening.”
Talat-Kelpša, who was in New Delhi for the Raisina Dialogue, also held bilateral talks with Indian government officials.
As India looks to increase its footprint across the world, it opened its first embassy in Lithuania, a country of roughly 2.8 million people located in the Baltic region in Europe, last year.
India’s trade in goods with Lithuania stands close to half a billion dollars, which according to Talat-Kelpša involves the export of agricultural products from Vilnius to New Delhi. However, India has also played a role in shaping Lithuania’s space programme, with Vilnius using the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) platforms for launching its first satellites into space.
Indians also make up the fifth largest migrant community in Lithuania, which has only been growing over the years as more students look to the country considered to have a burgeoning high-technology economy.
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Lithuania: A model for self-reliance
Vilnius, which was occupied by the Soviet Union for close to fifty years, had an extremely interconnected economy with Russia, especially its energy sources. However, in the last decade or so, the country, which has been on the forefront of warning Europe against potential Russian aggression, has sought its own energy independence.
“A few years ago, Lithuania was still importing 70 percent of the electricity it was consuming, completely dependent on other countries. We used to have a nuclear generation for energy. We had to shut down our nuclear unit as part of the EU accession package. It was a Chernobyl-type nuclear power plant and was deemed unsafe,” said Talat-Kelpša.
Now, he said, two thirds of the electricity we consume in Lithuania is domestically generated. “And it’s generated by solar and wind. So who would think that in the northern part of the hemisphere, you can get this much. Now it’s not an ambition, it’s a very realistic scenario. But by 2030, we’ll already be an electricity exporting country.”
This change has ensured that Lithuania does not have to worry about the loss of Russian energy supplies to Europe due to the war in Ukraine. Earlier this year, Lithuania fully disconnected itself from the Russian energy system.
“We have built connections with the markets. So we tell the European Union in general, this is the way to follow. You want to be more resilient, more self-reliant, do as we did only on a larger scale, introduce more alternative access points to the energy market and invest more in greener energy in Europe,” added Talat-Kelpša.
However, Vilnius has not only faced challenges emanating from Russia. It has also faced pressure from China in 2021 after it allowed Taiwan, which Beijing claims as a province, to open a trade representative office in Vilnius. Lithuania did not back down from Beijing’s pressure, and even saw its ambassador to China expelled.
However, it saw this as an opportunity, and today around 80 percent of its trade is with democracies, Talat-Kelpša said. He said these are important lessons for the EU to take away from Lithuania’s ability to adapt to its various challenges.
Russia ‘challenged’ the fundamentals of European security
The Lithuanian official said that Russia’s foreign policy approach, ideologically, means to reconstitute the European security order to suit its needs, including having a right to dictate the foreign policy choices of other European countries.
“Russia has objectives which go beyond its aggressive war in Ukraine. Russia wants to reconstitute a certain kind of European security structure where Moscow has a veto right on at least part of the European countries’ decisions,” said Talat-Kelpša.
He added: “But in the end, the root cause… of what Russia wants in Europe is not changing.”
“So either we consolidate and say, look, the world order or the European security order that has been built since 1990 was a good one and we don’t want to change it. We’re going to defend it and then we introduce instruments to defend it. So that’s the way to go. And that’s what Lithuania strongly supports and advocates.”
This challenge to the fundamentals of European security is something that the three Baltic nations—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—have previously warned its allies in the EU about.
“Europe needs shocks and stresses and these tests on its own resilience and the war of aggression that Russia started against Ukraine was exactly this trigger of change on a very, very massive scale. And that change is irreversible,” said Talat-Kelpša.
He added: “Probably there is some underlying hope in some corners of the European Union that once Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine stops, we’ll go back to the previous state. And this is not going to happen. It’s really irreversible.”
“Russia challenged the fundamental principles by which European security infrastructure had been organised for decades.”
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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