Lietuva in brief - 2012-02-02

Feb 01, 2012

Lithuanian residents view the current economic situation today as worse than a year ago, reports ELTA. The poll, by market research company Baltijos Tyrimai, carried out in late December, showed that the evaluation of the state economy deteriorated by 10 percent in a month. In other words, the number of persons who think that the Lithuanian economy has been recently declining went up. Compared to a poll conducted in early autumn, September, at present there are by 24 percent more respondents who view the country’s economic situation as worse. Two thirds, or 67 percent, of those polled said that the Lithuanian economic situation deteriorated in the last months. Only 4 percent saw positive changes, while a quarter (26 percent) said the situation remained unchanged. Three percent of the respondents had no opinion. As the late December poll revealed, the current evaluation of Lithuania’s economy is worse than a year ago. In December 2010, 59 percent of those polled viewed the economic situation negatively, that is, the number of pessimist respondents went up by 8 percent.

The board of the Lithuania’s ruling coalition decided on Jan. 27 that all efforts need to be devoted to make the Snoras bankruptcy proceedings transparent, legal and efficient to protect the interests of taxpayers, reports ELTA. The proceedings, it says, have to be protected from any kind of non-transparent influence, provocations and intrigues. The ruling coalition says that when 40 MPs applied to the Constitutional Court on Jan. 23, such application in fact meant “an attempt to legalize shifting the burden of the missing money at Snoras onto the society’s shoulders. Even members of Parliament are being directly involved in the implementation, or even changing, of bankruptcy proceedings.” The heads of the coalition decided to support establishing an ad-hoc commission for the Snoras’ bankruptcy case in order to investigate possible illegal oligarch-political influence and politician’s involvement in bankruptcy proceedings. Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius says it was shocked that 40 members of the opposition, probably urged by the large-scale creditors, sent such an appeal to the Constitutional Court. According to him, it shows that large-scale creditors take all measures to intrude on the 4 billion litas’ (1.2 billion euros) worth bankruptcy proceedings and sway them to the benefit of suspects Vladimir Antonov and Raimondas Baranauskas.

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