Category: EU narrative

Defence and Space are very hot topics these days; at EU level they are energetically managed by Andrius Kubilius, a sixty-eight years old physicist and former Prime Minister of Lithuania. I had the pleasure to sit down with him and talk about his life and experiences.

Were you already involved in politics as a young man?
During soviet times politics was off the table for me: you had to join the Communist party and do a career inside of it and that was not very appealing.

Is this the reason why you studied physics?
My parents were both professors of literature, and my dad was suffering because the Soviet regime didn’t like what he was writing. And he told me: “Don’t go into literature, because that will only cause you troubles, there’s too much political pressure. Go for something scientific, like physics, because it is not ideological”.

A reasonable suggestion, was that enough to persuade you?
He did more than that: he brought me from the library the biography of Ernest Rutherford, one of the pioneers of the atomic model. I read it and I liked it, his desire for knowledge was very romantic, very passionate. So I decided to study physics and then I worked in the physics department for another ten years.

I remember seeing the dinosaur marching through the streets of Vilnius, was that tradition already in place?
Ah, the beast, called Dinas Zauras, was born while I was there in 1978. The faculty was already celebrating Physicists’ Day (FiDi) since 1969 and we took it to the next level. You know, there weren’t many women in our field of study back then, so the physicists invented this story that the dinosaur ate one of the girls of the philology department. Every year we would take the dinosaur to apologize to them.

A very creative way to meet girls, so the regime had nothing against this type of events?
No, they tolerated them. I dare say we enjoyed a lot more creative freedom than other faculties: our minds were free from Brezhnev-era propaganda, I am sure the literature department suffered more interference and repression.

In the Soviet Union, Physics was less controlled than Literature, because it was not ideological

Did the relative freedom in your department help fighting the regime?
Without doubts. I remember going with some physicist friends to the first Council of Sąjūdis (in June 1988, ed) and they were discussing how to organize the first big rally on Cathedral Square. They knew there could be provocations and they couldn’t trust the Soviet militia, they needed somebody from the inside to organize the security. And so me and my friends stood up and volunteered for this task. The experience we had in organizing our activities in the Physics department was very useful. Our protests went well and then the revolution came, almost by surprise.

Did you meet Professor Landsbergis (one of the founders and the most prominent member of Sąjūdis, ed) already in those days?
Yes, I think it was in 1988, during one of those meetings. I did not know him very well, but I knew his books about Čiurlionis, our most important painter. And I think my parents knew him, he came from a very prominent family in Lithuania. And it became quite clear that he had the political ability and charisma to lead the movement.

With my parents, we were listening to the same radio channels, mostly Radio Free Europe and Voice of America

Your father was also in the Sąjūdis movement. Would you say in time of struggles and with a common enemy the generations are closer to each other?
At home, we grew up in a very critical and skeptical environment towards the Soviet regime, but nobody was teaching us too much; I don’t remember my dad sitting down with me at the table and explaining to me how bad Soviets are, but we were listening to the same radio channels, mostly Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. Those were the biggest teachers.

My favorite peaceful protest is the Baltic Way, who came up with that idea?
I am not really sure. The rumor was that it came from Estonia, but that was just a rumor.

Was it hard to organize the human chain among the Baltic States? Were you talking in Russian?
Ah, true, we were speaking Russian to communicate across Baltic states, for sure more than English. I don’t think there was anything special, we just decided to divide the Lithuanian territory from Vilnius to the Latvian border and to distribute people on this line.

You make it sound very easy...
Well, there were for sure problems, but happy ones. For example, there were so many people that they added an unplanned part of the chain from Kaunas to Panevėžys. Unfortunately, I could not join the chain, as I was in East Berlin in those days.

Is the Baltic cooperation still strong?
Well, before the independence, there was an important meeting in Tallinn, in May 1989, when we established the so-called Baltic Assembly. It was very active for a while, but when each country went its own way, its importance faded. But we still interact a lot, as we are facing a common threat.

The Baltic Assembly helped coordinating the compensation demands for the Soviet invasion, one of your initiatives during your first premiership in 1999.
Yes, in 1992 we had a referendum about the new State and its Constitution. This gave the legal basis for claims against the violation of rights and freedoms (Art. 30, ed), including compensation for the Soviet occupation, a common issue in the Baltic States. Of course, we were not expecting that Russia would pay back, but it was a way to assert the truth and the responsibilities of those crimes.

We were not expecting that Russia would pay back, but it was a way to assert the truth and the responsibilities of the Soviet crimes

Talking about symbolism, as a MEP you started a motion, approved by the European Parliament, which claims that the Nazi–Soviet Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact “paved the way for the outbreak of the Second World War”. Do you think it’s good to let a Parliament legislate on historical matters?
History is complex, but the way we evaluate history depends on the people. Our feeling was that the western understanding of the WWII history is focused on the Munich Agreement, which was for sure a big mistake and there are analogies in today’s history too, but you forget about Stalin’s agreement with Hitler, which in the end enabled the invasion of Poland. This was the trigger. That statement was our way to oppose the Soviet and Putin’s simple narrative that Hitler started the war and that Poland provoked him.

You often stressed the common history of Lithuanian and Belarus, one could even claim that you tried to build some bridges towards the East. When did you lose your hopes that Russia could be a normal neighboring country?
Since Putin came to power; there were clear signs of neo-imperialism: the Chechen War, the Georgian War, the invasion of Crimea… We always pointed out that Russia was going down a dangerous road that could become a threat for the European Union. Already as a MEP (2019, ed), I noticed the lack of a proper European strategy against Russia.

Why is that so?
Some countries are worried that if Ukraine wins the war, the Putin regime would collapse and something worse would come instead. But this is not true: with our support to Ukraine we could trigger some changes in Russia and maybe bring them back to normality. We need to invest in that.

What would be the best approach?
To show that we believe that Russia can be different and better than what it is now. For that purpose, I support the accession of Ukraine to the European Union, it will be a great example of how people can take their own destiny in their hands. In fact, I was and I am working a lot with the Russian opposition, with the Navalnys and Kara-Murza.

We believe that Russia is not a lost case, it can be different and better than what it is now.

Some diplomats and journalists say that Baltic politicians are warmongers.
This is a wrong evaluation, nobody needs a functioning and peaceful Russia more than its neighbors.

Lithuania organizes forums, conferences and meetings for the Russian opposition, but they are not very keen to cooperate with each other…
Oh, we could talk about this for hours. I do not believe that something like the Maidan Revolution will happen in Russia, with leaders of the civil society and people protesting on the streets to remove the Kremlin regime. It will work in a different way: if you look at their history in the last century, usually changes happen within the Kremlin itself. Like after Stalin, Khrushchev came, then Brezhnev removed Khrushchev and so on. That’s how things change in Russia.

I do not believe that Russian people will protest in the streets. In Russia changes often happen within the Kremlin itself.

Let’s talk about your hobbies, I know you are an eager biker, even doing bike tours.
[chuckles] It’s a tradition that started after my first premiership, in 2001. With a group of friends, we decided to go biking in Lithuania for one week in summer. We gave to this tour political and social twist, we called it “Turn to the right”. After a few years, to avoid visiting the same villages over and over again, we decided to expand our tour to new territories.

Is that when you biked through Belarus?
Yes, at that time Lukashenko was still, ehm, normal. We had better relations with them, but then, at the end of 2010, he crushed the opposition and this deteriorated the diplomatic ties.

I’ve never been there, for obvious reasons. How was it?
We saw many beautiful castles and nice towns, but we had the impression that Lukashenko was showing us Potemkin villages (a construction whose purpose is to make people believe that the situation is better than it actually is, ed). They were selecting for us the places where we had to spend the nights and everything looked new and renovated, but we knew that the country is not really like that.

Where did go you after 2014?
After the invasion of Crimea, we switched to Ukraine, we did three bicycle tours there and we knew we were seeing the real country. When we stopped asking the locals about a road we saw in Google Maps they answered: “There is no road, only a direction”. We could also witness how dynamic and creative Ukrainians are in coping with the invasion.

With our support to Ukraine we could trigger some changes in Russia and maybe bring them back to normality

Is your wife tagging along?
She was following along with her own bike until a few years ago, when she discovered the existence of tandems.

How did you meet her? Did Dinas Zauras help?
No, we met for the first time at the baptism of the child of a friend of ours. I was the godfather and she was the godmother.

A very holy union since the beginning.
Ah ah, indeed.

Let’s talk about your second premiership, when you had to significantly reduce public spending by cutting pensions, services and even your own salary. How did you navigate those days?
We won the elections in October 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed in September, but we didn’t know what that meant. At the beginning of November, somebody from the Ministry of Finance said: “It’s a difficult situation, our predictions for 2009 is zero growth”. For us it was a big shock, because we were expecting 5-6% growth. We decided we had to cut some expenses. Few weeks later, the same person came to us saying: “It looks like the growth will be -5%”. It was obvious that we were heading towards bankruptcy, so we had to approve very restrictive measures and introduce new taxes. It was painful.

People accused you of stealing their pensions (“Pavogė pensijas”), when you were trying to save the country and prepare it for entering the Eurozone. What does a politician feel in those moments?
One has to check his decisions with his internal moral compass: if one feels he did the best possible job with the tools at hand, then even the hardest criticisms can’t harm him.

After the first austerity measures, we knew that there was no way to save our popularity, so we found the strength to do what was right

It takes a lot of responsibility to choose a path that people will not like.
After the first austerity measures, we knew that there was no way to save our popularity, so we found the strenght to do what was right and not what was easy.

How did you decide to adopt the internal devaluation?
We were looking to the other countries: Latvia was collapsing because of their banks, Estonia was in a much better situation. If, like Latvia, we had gone to the International Monetary Fund, it would not be so easy, and Estonia would also be forced to do the same. That’s why we went for internal devaluation. We recovered the economy quite quickly and joined the Eurozone in 2015.

You also managed to be reelected, even if your coalition lost the elections. Was this a surprise?
Just a bit, we lost 4%, I think, our liberal partners lost even more, it could have been worse.

Your ability for organization and planning is praised by your friends and by your opponents. When did you realize for the first time you possessed these skills?
I like to tell that it was in the first year of elementary school: we organized an ensemble of the children who were playing xylophone; actually, it was an easier version of that instrument, called metallophone. And we were playing our songs, all well-dressed, white shirt, black trousers, and we were repeating the last refrain five times. And I had to count when it was the fifth time, and when everybody stopped playing I had to say: “This is the end”. I remember that as the first time I had a strategic responsibility.

Talking about your current responsibilities, you are Commissioner for Defence and Space. Would you say the second part of your title is often forgotten?
As a physicist, I love dealing with space but obviously, at the moment, defence is the priority. Still we shouldn’t forget that space is also a significant part of a proper defence strategy.

Last question about your children: the first one is a Michelin chef, the second a manager for Google. Did you suggest them to stay away from politics, like your father did?
Ah ah, no, it was their personal choice. My second son is also called Andrius, we joke he could just run with my name and few people would notice.

At Colours of Ostrava, one of Czechia’s biggest culture and music festivals, I had the pleasure to meet and interview Martin Dvořák, the Czech Minister of EU affairs over a Czech beer and Belgian fries. As a passionate traveler, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to ask him about his life and his many missions abroad.