News

Vilnius Airport’s terminal building from 1954 was built during Stalin’s last years and still remains the airport’s main face towards Vilnius City.

Vilnius International Airport targets leading position in the Baltic region, The Lithuania Tribune reports referring to an article published in lrt.lt this week.

The Lithuanian Ministry of Transport and Communications states that the Vilnius International Airport is open to any particular candidate to assume the position as the national air carrier, and those wanting to initiate the activity are becoming increasingly selective, informs LETA/ELTA.

"Currently competition between airports is based not simply upon lowering taxes, but the amount of revenue accorded to the airlines. This system is employed by a significant portion of EU's regional airports, which are excluded from the list of major airports. Examples of this may include Kaunas International Airport", Deputy Minister of Transport Rimvydas Vastakas said.

Vilnius Airport has overcome a lengthy recession and secured almost all of the most attractive destinations by reducing its service fees to the lowest rates in the region, thereby admitting low-cost carriers such as Ryanair and Wizair.

"This is the third month, we are growing at not less than 30 percent, and all airlines, both low cost and traditional, show healthy results in growth", the Vilnius International Airport Director Tomas Vaisvila said.

Vilnius International Airport aims to serve almost two million passengers (about as much as before the downturn) this year and to operate without a loss in the following year. Within five years it is hoping to become the region’s major airport.

"If we keep moving at the current rate, with adequate promotion and growth in purchasing power, in a 5-year period we can become very strong", the Deputy Minister of Transport believes.

According to a representative of the company, which has possessed the major share of the Vilnius airport market for five years, the airport will not become the region's leader without transit passengers. And the possibility of transit passengers requires a national carrier.

"Without transit passengers, Vilnius airport cannot become a regional centre. This has been the eternal problem of the airport. The base carrier, should it be [the Latvian national airline] airBaltic, or someone else, could establish a transit hub. Because now, if there’s less than 51% of Lithuanian capital, aircraft with the Lithuanian flag cannot enter the most Eastern countries", airBaltic Executive Vice-President T. Vizgirda said.

Lithuanian air transport strategists say they can also achieve the desired goal by developing an open market.

As reported, in the current situation, there is no real possibility of moving Latvian national airline to the Lithuanian capital Vilnius at the moment, because this airport cannot ensure the necessary technical equipment and passenger flows, the chairman of the Latvian Federation Trade Unions of Civil Aviation Vladimirs Golakovssaid.

''This step, for any company, would be the final option, especially in the aviation industry, where prolonged stoppage leads to staff losing their professional qualifications, and to renew this, much time and finances has to be invested,'' Golakovs added.

The Latvian state has received an offer from airBaltic's private minority shareholder Baltijas Aviacijas Sistemes(BAS) to alter the airBaltic shareholders agreement and move the airline's head office to Vilnius.

Transport Minister Uldis Augulis (Union of Greens and Farmers) previously stressed that the state did not support this proposal, and believes that the airBaltic hub must remain in Riga.

http://www.lithuaniatribune.com

Foreign Minister Ažubalis:
“Sweden is a guarantor for Lithuanian energy security”

Outgoing Ambassador of Sweden to Lithuania Ulrika Cronenberg-Mossberg and Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis

On 27 July in Vilnius, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis and outgoing Ambassador of Sweden to Lithuania Ulrika Cronenberg-Mossberg discussed intensive bilateral relations’ agenda, economic cooperation and the exclusive role of Sweden in Lithuania’s path towards energy independence.

“Sweden, as our link to the European energy system, is one of Lithuania’s guarantors for energy security. I am glad that the NordBalt is being implemented according to the plan. We also hope for Sweden’s attention and cooperation as Lithuania is constructing the new Nuclear Power Plant,” A.Ažubalis said during the meeting.

He thanked the Ambassador for her efforts to maintain close alliance between Lithuania and Sweden, and also close fellowship. The Minister voiced confidence that friendly relations between the two countries would continue to develop just as intensively in the future.

A.Ažubalis described Sweden as one of the stabilizing factors during the economic crisis. According to the Minister, today this country remains one of the most important trade partners and investors in Lithuania.
“Recently, we have turned a new page of regional cooperation of the Nordic Baltic Eight (NB8) and of the European Union’s Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, where Lithuania and Sweden are implementing many joint projects,” the Minister said.

The Swedish Ambassador to Lithuania began her tenure in 2008.

 
Protests outside the Austrian Embassy in Vilnius.
Photo: EPA

The international association of veterans of the Alpha Group counter-terrorist unit has asked the Russian President in an open letter to defend their colleague Mikhail Golovatov, whom Lithuania suspects of involvement in the firing on a demonstration in Vilnius.

The authors of the letter point out that Lithuania’s political forces are staging provocations against Alpha Group veterans to settle their home problems through a search for an enemy from without.

Golovatov was arrested in Austria on July 14th on a Lithuania arrest warrant. He returned to Moscow two days later since the Austrian police had no charge to bring against him.
Soviet troops were sent to Vilnius in January 1991 after Lithuania proclaimed independence from the Soviet Union. 14 people died in the clashes that followed.

http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/07/27/53792921.html

Statistics Lithuania informs that, based on the preliminary results of the survey of trade and catering enterprises, the turnover of retail trade, wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles enterprises (VAT excluded) in June 2011 amounted to LTL 2713.4 million (in 2010, LTL 2158.8 million) and, against May, increased by 0.8 per cent at constant prices (in June 2010, against May, the turnover had increased by 0.4 per cent).

Over a month (in June 2011, against May), the retail trade turnover, except for trade in motor vehicles and motorcycles, grew by 0.8 per cent at constant prices. The turnover of enterprises trading in food products grew by 2.4 per cent, that of enterprises trading in non-food products (motor vehicles excluded) dropped by 4.3 per cent at constant prices.

The turnover of enterprises trading in automotive fuel in June 2011, against May, grew by 8.2 per cent at constant prices.

The turnover of enterprises engaged in the wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles in June 2011, against May, grew by 0.8 per cent at constant prices.

The turnover of catering and beverage service enterprises (VAT excluded) in June 2011 amounted to LTL 76.5 million (in 2010, LTL 64.5 million) and, against May, decreased by 3.4 per cent at constant prices (in June 2010, against May, the turnover had dropped by 5.1 per cent).

(VAT excluded)
At constant prices, growth, drop (–), per cent

Lithuania, Israel seek to launch direct flight Tel Aviv – Vilnius

VILNIUS, BNS – Lithuania could become a center of tourism services, with Israel organizing direct flights as far as the United States, Israel's Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov said in Vilnius some days ago.

The objective of opening direct flights between Vilnius and Tel Aviv was high on the agenda of the Israeli minister's meeting Lithuania's Economy Minister Rimantas Zylius, the Economy Ministry said.

"We discussed the instruments for supporting the commercial interest for financial interest of flights between Vilnius and Tel Aviv, keeping airplanes full and tourists happy,” Zylius said after the meeting.

In Misezhnikov's words, contacts should first of all be made between travel organizers in both states to make them feel the commercial interest in promoting travel routes to Lithuania and Israel. He also proposed promoting city tourism, so-called city breaks, especially for young people who like weekend trips to European capitals. Misezhnikov said Israel's small businessmen could look into rural tourism development opportunities in Lithuania.

In 2010, about 10,000 Israeli tourists came to Lithuania and spend about 5 million euros here. Israel is one of Lithuania's priority tourism markets.

The two countries last year signed an agreement on tourism cooperation.

A very special ‘Culture Tall Ships Regatta’ will take place in Klaipeda 18 – 21 August

 
PHOTO: Sailors take up positions on the masts to lower the sails for the beginning of a regatta of tall ships.

This August, Klaipeda will be the starting point for a spectacular sailing event - The Culture Tall Ships Regatta 2011.

After the success of the Tall Ships Races 2009, this year Klaipeda is once again preparing for a fleet of sailboats.

The International Sail Training Organization (Sail Training International) is organizing this non-traditional regatta to mark the Finnish city Turku as ‘European Capital of Culture 2011’.

The Culture 2011 Tall Ships Regatta will be held after the Tall Ships Races 2011 and extend the Tall Ships festival season until September.

Klaipeda and Gdynia (Poland) have agreed to combine forces with Turku (Finland) and held the races in two phases: Tall Ships Regatta will start in Klaipeda, from where the fleet will race to Turku and then to Gdynia.

The Culture Tall Ships Regatta 2011 takes place 18 - 21 August.

 
Former KG officer, Mikhail Golovatov (62) commanded a special unit killing Lithuanian demonstrators in Vilnius on 13 January 1991. Here from the burial ceremony at the Vilnius Cathedral.

Prague, July 21 (CTK) - The Czech Republic has joined Lithuania's protest against Austria's release of a former Soviet secret service (KGB) officer in spite of a European warrant for his arrest issued in Lithuania, it ensues from yesterday's statement by the Czech Foreign Ministry, available to CTK.

Lithuania wants to prosecute the former KGB agent, Mikhail Golovatov, for alleged war crimes from 1991.

The other two Baltic countries, Estonia and Latvia, have backed Lithuania's stand.

Czech diplomacy supported Lithuania after a phone conversation between the Czech and Lithuanian foreign ministers, Karel Schwarzenberg and Audronius Azubalis, Foreign Ministry spokesman Vit Kolar said.

"Persons responsible for people's violent death under dictatorial regimes in Central and Eastern Europe should be brought to court. To push through the rule of law, every European country has a moral duty to cooperate in these cases," the ministry wrote.

According to some diplomats, the Czech stance can be interpreted as an act of solidarity with the Baltic states against Moscow.

Golovatov, 62, commanded a special unit whose members were shooting at Lithuanian demonstrators in Vilnius on January 13, 1991. A total of 17 people were shot dead and some 700 wounded. The authorities of the collapsing Soviet Union thereby attempted to thwart Lithuanians' effort to reach independence.

A similar intervention of Soviet armed forces in the neighbouring Latvia resulted in seven casualties.
Lithuania wants to charge the former KGB officer with crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Last Thursday, Golovatov was detained at the international airport in Vienna. He was released a day later allegedly because the arrest warrant was too vaguely formulated.
Security expert Andrei Soldatov, cited by Die Presse Austrian paper, has said Golovatov retired only formally and he keeps working for the FSB Russian secret service, a successor to KGB.

Source:
http://praguemonitor.com

If weather conditions are favourable, the Sventoji Port which has been covered in sand may again serve yachts in a couple of weeks, even though there were plans to postpone the channel dredging works till the year 2012, the Klaipeda daily Vakaru Ekspresas reports.

As the Klaipeda State Seaport Authority and the contractor of the works, the Latvian company BGS agreed, the contractor is to carry out the works in two weeks if weather conditions are favourable.

The shipping season usually lasts till 15 September, therefore the Klaipeda State Seaport Authority was considering whether it was worthy to deepen the Sventoji Port channel that was covered in sand in June, only 10 days after the official opening of the port, writes LETA/ELTA.

On Tuesday the Klaipeda State Seaport Authority announced that a special commission had examined factors why the Sventoji mouth's channel got covered in sand. Unusual meteorological conditions were named as one of the reasons. North and north-west winds would dominate and as the wind gust would reach 14 meters per seconds, waves of 1.5 meter high would form which in turn triggered a slip of part of accumulated ground.

 
Viviane Reding says Austria had a legal basis to reject the European arrest warrant
Photo: http://top-people.starmedia.com

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Austria had no legal obligation to deliver ex-KGB general Mikhail Golovatov to Lithuania, since the crimes he is accused of occurred eleven years before before the European arrest warrant entered into force, EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding has said.
The release of Golovatov last Friday, less than 24 hours after his arrest, sparked an intense diplomatic row between Lithuania and Austria, with Vilnius accusing Vienna of violating EU and national law and lack of solidarity with another member state.

Lithuanian prosecutors had issued the European arrest warrant in order to put Golovatov on trial for allegedly having ordered, as a former KGB general, the storming of the Lithuanian state television in 1991. The events left 14 people dead and hundreds injured as the Baltic state was declaring its independence. Golovatov is now in Russia, a country which does not extradite its citizens to the EU.

"From a legal point of view, Austria didn't have the obligation to implement the European arrest warrant," Reding told a press conference in Sopot, Poland, after an informal meeting of justice ministers where the Lithuanian-Austrian row came up.

The commissioner explained that under EU law, a country receiving an EU arrest warrant from another member state is obliged to follow it only if the crimes were committed after 2002.

Read more at:
http://euobserver.com/9/32642

 
Lithuanian officials claim that 14 unarmed Lithuanians were murdered by Golovatov and his more than 1.000 KGB and army soldiers in Vilnius on the 13th of January 1991.

Mikhail Golovatov led a unit of Soviet special forces that stormed the main television tower in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, on 13th January 1991, when it was surrounded by demonstrators who were determined to see their country break free from five decades of Kremlin control. Fourteen people were killed in the attack, and about 1,000 others injured.

Police arrested Mr Golovatov at Vienna airport last Thursday on a European arrest warrant issued by Lithuania, but he was freed the following day and allowed to fly to Russia, which does not extradite its citizens.

Austrian officials claimed that Lithuania did not make a strong enough case for them to sanction the detention of Mr Golovatov and for his possible extradition to be considered.

Lithuanian authorities vehemently deny Austria’s version of events, insisting that they sent details of the case to Vienna in English and German, detailing how Mr Golovatov faced charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity that carried a potential life sentence.

President Dalia Grybauskaite recalled her ambassador from Vienna for consultations and said: “Austria’s haste in releasing the suspect in the January 13 case cannot be politically justified and compromises co-operation between the European states in law enforcement.”
Lithuania’s foreign minister, Audronius Azubalis, who discussed the issue with Austrian counterpart Michael Spindelegger, said his compatriots “and relatives of the victims ... are waiting for a convincing explanation from Austria as to why the decision was taken and why it was taken so hastily.”

“He told me that this is an old wound for Lithuania,” Mr Spindelegger said. “I understand this ... but even in the case of old wounds, there is no getting around the fact that there are principles in a process that have to be adhered to ... There was a request, we set a deadline to highlight that with concrete details. This deadline ran out without such concrete details.”

Lithuanian justice minister Remigijus Simasius said he would raise the issue at an EU meeting in Poland today. “It’s very likely that this case is related to a political decision, and Russia’s influence in making that political decision,” he said.
Vytautas Landsbergis, leader of Lithuania’s independence movement, said Austria had shown “subservience to Russia and a lack of a sense of honour.” This is not the first case in which Austria has been accused of bending to Russia’s will.

Vienna was strongly criticised for rejecting an appeal for police protection from Umar Israilov, who sought asylum in Austria after accusing his former boss, Kremlin-backed Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov, of committing torture. Austrian police dismissed his request, and he was murdered shortly afterwards by Chechen hitmen. Investigators suggested that Kadyrov had ordered the killing.

Mikhail Golovatov was in the 1990s  founding Russia’s ‘security company Alpha-B and the consulting company Consult TP, where most of the employees are retired KGB officers

On their website they claim to have: “Highly qualified Security Professionals
Very Effective at Interacting with Russian  Official Bodies
- State Duma
- Chamber of Commerce and Industry
- Other Governmental Institutions.”

The private Security Company Alpha-B was created and officially registered in 1993. The founder of the company was Mikhail Golovatov, the former officer of the Soviet anti-terrorist group Force "Alpha" (Group "A").

Cities where Alpha-B officially operates:
Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Prague,
Goudermes, Tbilissi, Juzhno-Sakhalinsk
Atherau, London, Helsinki, Grozny

Lithuania and its sister republics, Latvia and Estonia, have always been difficult targets for holidaying motorists, not least because the road quality deteriorates the further east you go, and there's an impasse in the shape of Russia's enclave of Kaliningrad. But DFDS Baltic ferries (0871 522 9978; dfds.co.uk/Baltic) between Kiel in northern Germany and Klaipeda in Lithuania offer a fast track that also provides a 21-hour cruise. Typical return fares for a car and four people, and accommodation, is £800 (EUR 1,000) in August. 

Source:
http://www.independent.co.uk

Agility, a leading global logistics provider, has introduced a scheduled freighter service that will directly connect key origins in China via Shanghai to Kaunas, Lithuania.

With few freight options that cover this routing, the new service delivers stable and faster access, helping customers move goods from China into the rapidly growing markets of Northern Europe, the Nordics, Russia and the Baltics.

The freighter has a capacity of 107 tons and will initially operate on a weekly basis, said.

Space is guaranteed. The new service allows Agility’s customers faster access to these markets with its Air Freight “Expedited” and “Premier” products on the route with reduced transit times of between one and four days, depending on destination.

The service forms part of a comprehensive logistics offering featuring additional supply chain solutions: pick-up and warehousing in China, customs clearance in Kaunas and warehousing in Lithuania.
Together with its partner in Lithuania, Hoptrans, Agility provides freight forwarding over land from Kaunas to a wide range of onward destinations including all major cities in the region.
At the destination, customer options will include customs clearance, warehousing in bonded and non-bonded facilities.

With a departure on Saturday morning from Shanghai and customs cut-off on Friday morning, this new service allows customers to load their cargo for delivery over the weekend, with many destinations receiving cargo on Monday.

“Northern Europe, the Nordics, Russia and the Baltics all show increasing demand for air freight,” said Michael Blaufuss, Agility’s Senior vice president of Air Freight.

“With our own freighter service, we are now uniquely positioned to offer end-to-end supply chain solutions that offer reliability and speed on these important trade routes.”

John Klompers, Agility’s chief commercial officer said the new service underlines Agility’s commitment to its customers in fast developing markets.

'This service will help them build robust and reliable transportation links that in turn connect their customers and operations around the world,' he added.

Source:
http://www.tradearabia.com

Latvian MEP Karins:
The LNG terminal will be built in Riga

Krisjanis Karins.

European Commission (EC) will support construction of the liquefied natural gas terminal only in Riga, whereas it will refuse to fund the construction of the terminal in Klaipeda or Ventpils, Krisjanis Karins, a Member of the European
Parliament, said in an interview on Latvian "Rietumu Radio".

When asked to comment on the discussion about the location of the terminal, Karins admitted that it is all about politics. Lithuania, for example, sustains the discussion only because it relates to its constituency. "Lithuania is even more dependent on Russian gas, and their voters demand immediate solutions. That is why they are so active," said Karins, adding that Lithuania will not solve anything without the help of Latvia.

Read the complete article at:
http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/energy/?doc=42975