Russia putting the squeeze on Lithuania

  • 2009-08-19
  • By Rokas M. Tracevskis

TRUCK POWER:  Lithuanian international haulage companies create up to 10 percent of country's GDP.

VILNIUS - The current behavior of Russian customs regarding Lithuania's international trucking companies, as well as Russia's ban on some Lithuanian milk exports, provokes some guesswork about the reasons for such actions. Lithuanian officials and political analysts urge restraint from being involved in an economic war.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Aug. 18 spoke about the situation. "Judging from the general tone of the conversation, Medvedev is interested in the re-establishment of usual relations," Linas Balsys, spokesman for Grybauskaite, said to Internet news site delfi.

Since the beginning of August, for close to two weeks, the situation near a checkpoint on the Latvian-Russian border was rather apocalyptic. Lithuanian-registered trucks were moving at a speed of five kilometers per week. The Russian customs asked Lithuanian-registered truck drivers to stand in a separate line from trucks with registration plates of other countries.

Prices of water and food skyrocketed in a nearby local bar. Lithuanian drivers started to drink water from a nearby creek. Latvian sex workers, specializing in the trucking industry, were coming in larger than usual numbers to the several kilometer-long line of trucks and, without sprucing up their appearance, started asking for their services the same prices as the prettiest girls in the windows of Brussels' red light district, i.e. 50 euros instead of the traditional 10 euros.
After several days of crisis, Linava, Lithuanian National Road Carriers' Association, started to send trucks with water and food for the drivers.

The official reason for Russian sanctions was unclear: 16 violations made by the Lithuanian road carriers since the beginning of this year. This figure comprises only 0.03 percent of all customs procedures for Lithuanian carriers. According to Lithuanian customs, 39 violations were made by Russian road carriers since the beginning of this year.

"Pirates and the Russians are unpredictable," Lithuanian Parliament Chairman Arunas Valinskas said during a briefing on Aug. 12, referring to the hostage crisis in Nigeria and the blockade of Lithuanian trucks. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas criticized this statement as undiplomatic.
Losing their temper, Lithuanian drivers even talked about blocking the road at the checkpoint of the Latvian-Russian border but they were calmed down by Linava's leaders. Linava has recognized only one violation of the 16 cases mentioned by Russian customs. On Aug. 15, when Catholic Lithuania celebrates Assumption Day, truck drivers' prayers were finally answered. The Lithuanian-registered trucks were again allowed to stand in the common line with trucks from other countries. The queue started to move. However, this normalization was achieved at a high price.

On Aug. 13, Russian customs officials presented an ultimatum during negotiations with the Lithuanian customs officials: exclude 29 major Lithuanian transportation companies from the TIR system in Lithuania. Lithuania agreed temporarily to do so. These 29 companies were active in Russia and they have their subsidiaries in Russia. It means that now they will buy TIR permission to carry cargo via Russia from Russia's ASMAP (Russian abbreviation for the International Road Carriers' Association), not Linava.

The Lithuanian side has great trust in support from the European Commission. EC officials already wrote a couple of letters to Moscow urging not to discriminate against Lithuanian trucking companies on the grounds of nationality.
In another dispute between the countries, Russia has banned butter, sour cream and cottage cheese from four Lithuanian producers because it said they found tetracycline in the products 's an antibiotic used to treat sick cows. On Aug. 17, the ban went into affect.

"If we'll find out that it is a discriminatory measure against Lithuania and if they don't look for antibiotics in the production of other countries, we'll talk in the language of European law," Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said during a press conference Aug. 17.
It is one more blow to Lithuania's exports, which already suffers from shrinking export markets and a national currency rate which is 'moderately overvalued' according to the International Monetary Fund.

According to Raimundas Lopata, political analyst and former director of the International Relations and Political Science Institute, Grybauskaite sent some signals promising more 'pragmatic' relations with Moscow, which were understood as a sign of weakness by the Kremlin. He said that it is Moscow's test of the new Lithuanian government and Grybauskaite, though at the same time he urged restraint from an adequate response to the Kremlin's action.
"We would not solve the problems escalating the conflict," he told daily Vilniaus Diena. Lithuanian state officials and political observers say that the European Union's pressure on Moscow would help solving the trading problem with Russia.

"It is, of course, one story when the Russian transport minister gets a call from the European commissioner from Brussels regarding the blockade against Lithuanian truckers, and a different story when Eligijus Masiulis calls from Vilnius," Eligijus Masiulis, Lithuanian transport minister told magazine Veidas.

According to Masiulis, in September, Laszlo Kovacs, the European commissioner responsible for taxation and customs, will visit Moscow. Kovacs told Masiulis that Lithuanian international haulage companies' problems at Russian customs will be discussed during the visit.
"The West should not be afraid of Russia. Russia's GDP equals the GDP of The Netherlands. Talking to the Westerners, I say to them, 'When you speak with the Russian prime minister, imagine that you speak with prime minister of the Netherlands'. The Westerners are impressed by the size of Russia on the map. I say to them that beyond the Ural mountains only about eight million people live, and it is less populated than Belarus," Audrius Baciulis, journalist at Veidas told Lithuanian public TV, echoing the opinion of many economists who refer to Russia as 'Saudi Arabia without palm trees.'

Gennady Onishchenko, Russia's chief veterinary officer, is often nicknamed by Russia's independent printed media as 'the most powerful Russian strategic weapon' because his sanctions are usually directed against countries which do not behave themselves, in the eyes of the Kremlin. Valeriya Novodvorskaya, Moscow-based human rights activist and journalist of Russia's magazine The New Times, said that the ban on Lithuanian dairy products' import is the same politicized story as it was with Russia's ban on imports of Georgian mineral water, Moldova's wine, Polish pork, and Belarusian milk. "It is a gastronomical schizophrenia. Soon nobody will trade with us," she told Ekho Moskvy, the only remaining independent radio station in authoritarian Russia.

No wonder that Moscow's behavior does not improve Russia's image in Lithuania. According to the social research by Prime Consulting, published in Veidas, not a single person questioned by the research company described Russia as a country which is friendly to Lithuania. The research was conducted by questioning 500 persons in the biggest towns of Lithuania. According to the survey, the friendliest countries towards Lithuania are as follows, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Latvia, the U.S., and Poland. Some 81.4 percent described Russia as unfriendly, followed by Belarus (10.4 percent). For comparison, only 0.2 percent described the U.S. as unfriendly. The research was conducted on Aug. 10-12.