The president of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaite,
and president of the United States of America, Barack Obama.

USA's president, Barack Obama, visits Europe this week. Ireland, England, France and Poland are on his programmer on this trip to Europe, the 9th as U.S. president.

Obama's weeklong tour is all about tending to old friends in the Western alliance and securing their help with daunting challenges, from the political upheaval in the Mideast and North Africa to the protracted war in Afghanistan.

A priority for the president and his allies will be to more clearly define the West's role in promoting stability and democracy in the Arab world without being overly meddlesome and within tight financial limitations.

A highlight of Obama's opening stop in Ireland will be a pilgrimage to the hamlet of Moneygall, where Obama will explore his Irish roots. Fulmouth Kearney, who immigrated to the United States in 1850 at the age of 19, is the third great-grandfather of Obama on his white, Kansas-born mother's side. Obama, whose father was born in Kenya, will connect in Moneygall with distant relatives from the Irish branch of his family tree.

After his one day in Ireland, he will spend two in England, where he and first lady Michelle Obama will be treated to all the pomp and pageantry that the monarchy can muster for the president's first European state visit. The Obamas even get a Buckingham Palace sleepover.

Heather Conley, director of the Europe programme at the private Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said Obama's stop in Britain could help "put the 'special' back into the U.S.-U.K. special relationship."

In private, Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron will plunge into the details of a host of international challenges on which the U.S. and Britain have worked together: Afghanistan, Libya, counterterrorism, the global economy and more.

Both leaders then scoot to a French summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations, where the president hopes to build on momentum from his speech days ago about how best to promote stability and democracy in the Middle East.
Obama has called on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to present the G-8 with an ambitious plan to help Egypt and Tunisia, in particular, recover from the disruptions caused by their democratic revolutions and prepare for elections later this year.

During his two-day stay in Deauville, France, Obama will take time for one-on-one meetings on the side of the G-8 with several world leaders, including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

Poland and Central Europe
Obama's visit to Poland is emblematic of a growing front in the administration's engagement in Europe, as the U.S. expands its economic and security relationship with Central European nations.

Obama will focus on energy cooperation, including shale gas development, when he visits NATO partner Poland for the first time, a US diplomat said last week in Warsaw.

"Energy is a pillar of Polish-American relations and it is sure to be the subject of discussions when President Obama visits Warsaw," US ambassador Lee Feinstein told delegates to a shale gas conference. Global fuel giants are exploring Poland's shale gas deposits, which a recent US study pegged as having a potential 5.3 trillion cubic metres of natural gas which could last some 300 years.

The U.S. has become a global leader in the production of natural gas extracted from shale, boosting its energy security, driving down prices and making it an exporter. Poland hopes it could reap similar benefits. However, experts insist that with exploration in the very early stages, it is too soon to gauge commercial viability.

Obama – Grybauskaite
In April 2010, Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev signed a new arms reduction treaty in Prague, primarily with regards to the Eastern European missile defence system that had been planned by the Bush administration,

After the signing, President Obama invited the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Romania, as well as the prime ministers of Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia to attend a dinner with him in Prague.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite openly disagreed with Obama on the new reduction plan, claiming it harmed Lithuanian security, and in perhaps the most shocking move refused to take part in the dinner in Prague. Grybauskaite was the only invited president who refused to meet with Obama.

Since becoming Lithuania's president in 2009, Grybauskaite has wasted no time defining her leadership. "Yes, you have to be a strict and loud partner if you want to be heard in the conversation," she told The Associated Press in an interview this winter.

"Lithuania is not used to a straightforward, terse, forceful way of making statements. I admit using this style in pushing NATO defense plans for the Baltic States," she said, referring to U.S. cables released by WikiLeaks earlier this year, showing that NATO in January 2010 privately decided to expand a NATO defense plan for Poland to also cover Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

"I am afraid that if I had chosen a different tone, Lithuania and its neighbours would be still waiting another six years for these," she said to the Associated Press, giving herself credit for USA’s and NATO’s new strategy as revealed by WikiLeaks.

President Obama has invited the same state leaders for a dinner by the end of this week, now in Poland, and we understand that this time President Grybauskaite has accepted the invitation.

It still remains to see how President Grybauskaite’s ‘reflections’ vs. the Obama administration in 2010 and NATO now in 2011 are being treated and responded to by the said parties. We can only hope they are not given too much weight and that the relationships with Lithuania have not been harmed. Her acceptance of this year's invitation from Obama, and the absence of new provocative statements, suggest that she has adopted a more conciliatory and diplomatic style and line.

The right to disagree and discuss any topic should always remain free and open, but I think our president would be better off by following more recognized protocol procedures when such delicate issues are to be discussed at the highest international level.
To have a best possible relationship with the U.S. and the Obama administration is important for Lithuania, and one can only hope that his visit to Europe and Poland will come to represent a positive step towards improved dialogue and cooperation also between Lithuania and the United States.

Aage Myhre, Editor-In-Chief