By Aage Myhre, Editor-in-Chief

The above post from Val Samonis, where he compares “crisis-hit” Greece and a Lithuania supposed to be quickly recovering from the 2008 crisis, internationally praised for its austerity measures, calls for reflection.

The difference is that while the people of Greece protest and angrily demonstrate in the streets of Athens, people here only become more and more bitter, emigrate, begets crime in other countries, etc. 

Lithuania's elderly and disadvantaged people who have seen their minimum pensions drastically cut, and mothers seeing that the child benefits are completely removed as concept, they bow their necks and become even more active in growing potatoes on their garden spots outside the city instead of standing up against the government’s unfair measures against them... 

This country's politicians claim they have been the smartest in Europe by cutting in time, and not needing much of foreign loans or support  from IMF or others. But who are the ones suffering from this?

The answer is relatively clear. Baltic Times recently wrote that the parliamentarians in Lithuania enjoy EU’s second highest salaries/benefits, with only French politicians ahead. See http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/30094/

It is unquestionably true that things now are improving. But this happens very slowly, and one must remember that the Baltic countries were far behind the free countries of Europe in 1990 and that to bring them up the same level and standard required a much steeper growth curve here, which has not been the case despite colossal EU funding. To reach the average GDP and standards for the EU27 countries is very far away, probably 20-40 years from now.

Unemployment has begun to decline somewhat, but we are talking only about a reduction from around 18% three years ago, against 14% today. When one also knows that about 20% of the country's able-bodied labour force has emigrated during this period, there is in other words no significant improvement to be proud of. Also, many of those having a job, work in state enterprises or administration where effectiveness perhaps is about 50% of what one finds in Western countries, hence the statistics are not showing much of the real situation.

My conclusion are therefore the following:
• There are in fact no more real jobs now than it was four years ago.
• The number of productive jobs has probably gone more down than up.
• The most skilled workers have left the country and the quality of work is therefore on a downturn, hence the statistics presents a far too bright picture of today’s reality in Lithuania.