“I am very happy that people care and that they realise that defence costs money. But in this debate I do not see any clear statement that we are not only interested in more money for defence, but we are prepared to pay more for it. As Margaret Thatcher put it, the state has nothing but taxpayers’ money,” Šimonytė told Žinių radijas on Thursday.
The prime minister admitted that the ambition for the amount of GDP allocated to defence could be higher given the situation in the region. However, the discussion on ways to distribute this burden across the society could be a difficult one, according to Šimonytė.
“Taxpayers have to speak out whether they accept lower social welfare in other areas, or whether they agree to pay higher taxes so that other areas do not suffer, but defence is also better funded. It is not easy for everyone to say that, but I am a realist, so I would like to agree at least on 3% of GDP first,” the prime minister said.
Earlier this week, a number of businesses and organisations announced they had set up the “4 procentai” initiative to mobilise the public and encourage politicians to agree on 4% of GDP for defence as soon as possible.
The founders of the initiative are Unicorns Lithuania, Lithuanian Business Confederation (LVK) and Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists (LPK). They have invited all citizens, “who are not indifferent to Lithuania’s security,” to sign the petition at www.4procentai.lt.
Supporters of the initiative include NGO Blue/Yellow, Telia Lietuva, Bitė Lietuva, Tele2, Tesonet, Vinted, Teltonika Group, HISK, Mantinga, Baltic Classifieds Group, ACC Distribution, Hostinger, Omnisend, Furniture1, Nord Security, Oxylabs, Surfshark, Telia Global Services Lithuania, Cybercare, Adtractive, Mediatech, Dokobit, the law firm Walless and the BC Žalgiris and Rytas basketball clubs.
