Thread by @Xy5Z89

#BREAKING

#Lithuania #Vilnius

Last week #Lithuanian #parliament adopted the state #budget for 2020. The main #financial document of the #state was approved by the majority of voters.

It is sad to see how #Lithuania is #suffering without #money. Absolute #chaos – this is how they say in #Lithuania about the new budget.
So, state budget revenues are planned in the amount of 11.559 billion euros, expenses – 12.705 billion euros.

The budget deficit will amount 2.9% of the planned gross domestic product. In other words, the #Lithuanian #draft hardly met the requirements of #fiscal #discipline. The #budget #deficit for #EU member states should not exceed 3% of GDP.

It is remarkable that the #parliament’s consideration of the draft budget was accompanied by mass protests of public sector workers who demanded higher wages. Moreover, the #strike was held by #school teachers in November.

#Vilnius University symbolically stopped working for two days. On Tuesday, #policemen and #firefighters #protested outside the #Parliament building.
Surprisingly, ignoring massive protests by citizens, Finance Minister Vilius Šapoka called for support

for the draft state budget and named it «realistic and balanced».
Only one thing is not clear – why this draft budget is called «#socially oriented». After all, the expenses laid down in it are oriented only to the #army.

It turns out that ordinary people should #suffer without #money. At the same time, the #country’s leadership said that the #military would not abandon the planned purchases of #weapons or #military equipment, as well as other planned purchases, construction and repairs.

By the way, the majority of the #Lithuanians do not support the increase of #military spending, according to #Vilmorus opinion poll. So, 55.2% of #citizens do not approve the raising of the #defense budget to 2.5% of #GDP by 2030.

However, despite the opinion of the inhabitants of #Lithuania, the #authorities do not #refuse the idea of increasing #defense #spending. For example,

Minister of #Defense Raimundas Karoblis emphasized the need to allocate at least 2% of #GDP for defense and gradually increase it to 2.5%. This year, the #defense #budget is approximately 967 million euros, or 2.03% of #GDP.

A similar decision to allocate at least 2.5% of #GDP for #defense until 2030 was supported by the #Lithuanian #parliament. Moreover, as the #president said in December, #defense investment is not a whim, but an “#existential need.”

The leader of the country also expressed hope that the #defense #spending will be 2.5% of #GDP by 2030.
It is known that #Lithuania is among the #worst countries in the #European #Union in terms of the #financial well-being of the #population. So,

Estonia takes the 20th place with a total score of 5.85, Latvia –21st with 5.55 points, and Lithuania took the penultimate 23rd place –5.54.
As we can see, the government cannot meet the basic needs of doctors, firefighters, policemen and teachers who fairly require higher wages.

But this does not affect #military spending.
For the sake of muffling the waves of #protests, the #strikers will be given trifle and a lot of different promises of a bright future. However,

people will not be able to feed their families and the recent wave of anti-#government #protests eloquently testifies to this fact.

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