Atlantic Council

Lithuania's main center-right party, Homeland Union, won parliamentary elections Sunday and defeated the center-left Social Democrats, the ruling party since 2001.  According to Reuters, Homeland Union won 44 seats, well short of a majority in Lithuania's 141-seat parliament.  Party leader Andrius Kubilius said he hoped to form a coalition of 79 seats with smaller center-right parties.

With the financial crisis being felt in Lithuania, the economy was the main electoral issue.  Inflation is currently in the double digits, and fears are growing that the goal of joining the euro currency in 2011 may have to be pushed back.

General James Craddock, NATO's top military commander, has requested that the alliance create contingency plans for Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, RFE/RL reported.  Contingency plans are full defense strategies crafted for each NATO member country and remain classified.

Although no Eastern European member states currently have full contingency plans, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia remain the only three alliance members to have none at all.  Despite Baltic pressure on the alliance for stronger defense against Russia, contingency plans were not drawn up for the three countries after their accession to NATO in 2004 because of a focus on Afghanistan and terrorism.  However, Russia's recent invasion of Georgia has brought the issue to the fore.  With the three Baltic countries considered the most exposed in the alliance, Craddock recommended Estonia be assessed first because of its large ethnic Russian minority and strained relations with Moscow.

Official contingency plans require unanimous support of all NATO members, so politics will almost surely come into play.  France and Germany believe proceeding with the plans might worsen already tense ties with Russia.  The U.S. and the UK strongly support moving forward with the plans and insist that NATO business needs to carry on in the wake of the Georgia conflict.  The Baltic states have expressed concern that a failure to provide them with contingency plans could erode the alliance's commitment to mutual defense.

Kurt Volker, the new US ambassador to NATO, yesterday called on the Alliance to increase preparations to defend the Baltic states from military attack, noting that, unlike Georgia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are signatories to Article 5, "so if there is any attack on those countries we will all respond," James Blitz reports for the Financial Times. Volker added, "We need to do what NATO ought to do, not in a provocative way and not in a rushed or hasty way. But NATO being credible is what’s important."