هل يتحوّل الاتحاد الأوروبي إلى اقتصاد حرب؟ وزير ليتوانيا يكشف التفاصيل لإرم بزنس في وقت يشهد فيه الاتحاد الأوروبي ارتفاعاً غير مسبوق في الإنفاق الدفاعي، التقت "إرم بزنس" وزير الاقتصاد الليتواني لوكاس سافيكاس لبحث رؤية بلاده في التعامل مع هذه التحوّلات وتداعياتها على الاقتصاد الأوروبي. هل نحن أمام ولادة اقتصاد حرب أوروبي جديد؟ وكيف يمكن التوفيق بين هذا التوجّه الدفاعي وبين متطلبات النمو والابتكار والتحول الأخضر؟
00:47وأيضا تساين أيضا تساين الكثير من المزيد من المزيد
00:52To my understanding, this has clearly indicated a significant shift in terms of opportunities which come from one hand establishing a new defense industry ecosystem on a regional basis.
01:10It is very clear that lessons learned from our neighborhood, especially from Ukraine, indicate how important it is to have short supply chains.
01:22That means all countries, including Lithuania, will be seeking to create as much capability in the closest region of having necessary defense industries as close to home as possible.
01:36Such spending is absolutely going to be a trigger, which will help us in the next three to four years to create in practice a new defense industry ecosystem.
01:48And that will not only be a clear indication, a necessary response to the ongoing geopolitical situation, but also a new economic growth sector.
02:03Lithuania has never seen such growth as it is happening now.
02:08Both, we see that this is indicating opportunities for our defense ecosystem players to grow and for new ecosystem players to appear.
02:19As a ministry, we have created a new initiative called VITIS, which is just for one year, united more than a couple of hundred million euros just to start and assist new companies to create innovative defense products, but also for our bigger ones to launch some additional versions.
02:40Well, I'm very happy to say that the fintech industry is one of those industries which clearly state how successful smaller European member states can be when we have a very good strategy in their mind.
02:59It was in the context of the last financial crisis, when all the banks were in those unclear waters and companies were struggling to get the necessary finances.
03:12It was exactly in that moment that Lithuania took a very clear position to say that one of the answers to this situation could be one of the most attractive regulatory environments with the support of state regulators and creating a sandbox approach.
03:30When a company which seeks to get a license and operate as a fintech company, they could do that with a support rather than just a very complicated and messy procedure.
03:43And this helped Lithuania to become, you know, a location as a primary, to my understanding, gateway for non-European fintechs who want to enter European market, they do exactly that through Lithuania.
04:00That is why we have now more than 280 fintech companies and they are serving more than 30 million clients with more than 8,000 people working in this field alone.
04:12This clearly indicates that this was a very proven success, how we can convert a crisis into a new opportunity.
04:20And within that context, we have managed to establish ourselves as a gateway for non-European companies, especially to enter European market.
04:29And I think this is a model which can be replicated and continues to be replicated in other sectors as well.
04:39Well, Lithuania has always been one of the countries who have been very vocal to say about the risks that come from these countries.
04:51And our long-standing position is now being recognized by our close partners and friends in all continents that we have been right to indicate those risks because those risks in the last years have come true.
05:07And for many, it has been a very eye-opening moment.
05:12For Lithuanians, it has been a clear, long-standing preliminary evaluation of a situation under which we operated.
05:22And we have been always very straightforward with our businesses and I think we can really be thankful for this strong cooperation with our business community who have also seen those risks.
05:37And together with the support of the government, with strong innovative culture, with eagerness to find new markets, we have managed to really diversify their dependencies on these markets.
05:51And while, yes, geographical position for Lithuania would be very strong in terms of being a bridge between the East and the West, but depending on those situations, we have managed to adapt and find new markets.
06:07And I think this is part of our DNA of our businesses, because once they see a risk coming up.
06:20Renewable energy for Lithuania is something which is a very clear, strong focus, strategic focus, under which we have operated and we continue to operate.
06:35Since our re-establishment of our independence, we had many dependencies in terms of energy.
06:44And throughout many different governments, we had a very straightforward path in order to ensure our energy independence.
06:52One of those primary examples was an LNG terminal called independence, which allowed us to reduce our dependency on gas from Russia completely, but also helped to reduce those dependencies, not only for Lithuania, but also for the region.
07:11In terms of energy, in terms of energy, and especially electricity, we can see that Lithuania also took this opportunity.
07:20And at the beginning of this year, we have cut all electricity grid dependent connections to Russia electricity grid.
07:28We connected fully, integrated fully to European grid.
07:31And also, we are one of the fastest moving in terms of creating renewable energy sources.
07:40More or less about 70% of last year's energy, which was consumed, was already produced by renewables.
07:49And that is one of the highest numbers you can find.
07:51As a government, which is in place now for a little bit more than half a year, we have moved up our expectations to create 100% of electricity coming from renewables by 2028.
08:07And that is also one of the fastest and one of the fastest and one of the fastest and one of the most ambitious goals that you can find within the European Union.
08:14This has taken Lithuania from the situation of being in a very dependent state in terms of energy to a new situation under which we can become an electricity exporter.
08:28And especially if you look in our neighborhood, we see that there is a lot of need, not only for affordable electricity, but also for renewable electricity.
08:38And here Lithuania is now in a very strong position.
08:42So, generally speaking, we are part of those few European member states, which are leading the way by example, by technological advancement, by showcasing how this is possible.
08:56Well, Lithuania has always benefited significantly from strong cooperation and open markets that the European Union provides.
09:13And we talked just a few moments ago about fintechs.
09:18And one of the success stories of that is our ability to be a gateway, not just for Lithuanian market.
09:26But for European market as such.
09:28So, there are many significant benefits within which Lithuania can foster because we can offer reliability, we can offer a friendly regulatory environment, we can offer fast-paced solutions.
09:41And there is always space for individual European Union member states to showcase their eagerness to be more competitive, their capacity to cut red tape, and many other ways to be a little bit faster or more friendly in specific fields on which we have our eyes set on.
10:01But at the same time, it is in the interest of Lithuania to have a member, a European Union, which is continuously a competitive union, which is a union which is capable to deliver on global challenges.
10:17And especially in situations such as now we have so much instability on global scale when we talk about trade.
10:26The ongoing discussions about the tariffs would be a big challenge or a bigger challenge for Lithuania.
10:33But we see that the common understanding, a shared and common negotiation tactics between the United States and the European Union puts us in a stronger position.
10:47So, I think this is exactly where we want to be.
10:51We want to contribute to the decision-making which builds a strong, competitive and growing Europe.
10:59But at the same time, within that Europe, we can find a lot of space.
11:04And we have already showed in many examples that we can be that country which is a little bit faster, maybe a little bit more friendly to business, a little bit more competitive.
11:17I am 100% sure that we have a lot of almost low-hanging opportunities available for a closer economic cooperation.
11:29And I am very eager to contribute personally to growing that and seizing those opportunities.
11:37In the second half of this year, there are some plans for my personal visit to the region.
11:42We have, as you mentioned, just had a chance to discuss with our ambassador as well.
11:48He is very excited for the visit and there will be more high-level visits from our government as well throughout this year.
11:57And this will be building on the foundation which we already have.
12:01There are already some strong memorandums signed between Lithuania and region representative countries.
12:09There are some stronger focus on certain sectors which are more typical, but also with opportunities to create cooperation in more high-value-added sectors from green tech to fintech or AI.
12:25But also energy, which we talked about, is also a big challenge under which we could cooperate.
12:32And something which continues to be one of those lower-hanging opportunities and more simple to kickstart is tourism opportunities.
12:40And typically, exchanges between people visiting each other countries also lay sometimes unexpected foundations for economic cooperation as well.
12:51And I think those will be the topics that we will be discussing.
12:55And I hope that within our term of the next three and a half years, we will have many results from these efforts that we plan to make happen in the next years.
