President on wider borrowing limits for defence: incident in Poland only proves the need

President Gitanas Nausėda says he is pleased that the Ministry of Finance has supported his proposal to allow raising defence spending through borrowed funds in the revised state budget for 2023. The initial draft budget provided for the borrowed funds to account for up to 2.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), later the ceiling was raised to 3 percent.

“I am really happy about the news that finally, after considering all the circumstances, the Finance Ministry has supported our proposal to apply a more flexible formula for defence spending with borrowed funds up to 3 percent of GDP,” the head of state told the LRT broadcast Dienos tema on late Wednesday.