Lithuanian leaders: nation prepared for second crisis

VILNIUS -- Lithuania's president and prime minister have said that thanks to austerity measures the country is now much more prepared to face a second wave of the crisis.

"Lithuania is this time better prepared because we have managed ourselves, without any calls, to tighten our belts and adapt our financial policy to the economic downturn. The tight policy launched by this government will indeed help us survive easier, if the second wave comes,” President Dalia Grybauskaite told journalists Monday.

"Indeed, I hope that the second wave, whatever it is, will reach Lithuania being less powerful than the first one," she said.

Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius echoed her statements in the joint press conference, saying that many of the factors that exacerbated the economic crisis no longer exist.

"There are a lot of reasons why we were hit by the 2008 crisis so hard, but there are much fewer of these reasons now," he said.

Lithuania was one of the worst hit countries in the EU by the economic crisis, which came on the heels of years of strong growth.