Lithuania is poised to take the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union on 1 January 2027. Although the start date appears many months away, the Baltic country has already begun preparing itself for this key role. Having the presidency offers Lithuania a major opportunity to articulate its strategic vision for Europe as well as to shape the agenda of the European Union (EU), most notably on matters relating to defence policy. After all, Lithuania faces an acute security environment, being sandwiched between the militarized Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and its satellite ally Belarus.
The purpose of this piece is to highlight the interests and goals that Lithuania will have for its presidency of the Council of the European Union. To begin with, Lithuania will likely? promote efforts to improve European defence cooperation with special focus on enhancing the European defence industrial base. Though Atlanticist in its basic foreign policy orientation, Lithuania has been developing robust defence ties with Germany. It is an increasingly active player in European defence efforts. Lithuania will also attempt to use the platform of the presidency to galvanize support for Ukraine in its efforts to achieve some sort of military victory in its defensive war against Russia.
This piece elaborates on these themes and describes some policy implications for Canada. To preview why the Lithuania’s upcoming presidency matters for Canada, one must bear in mind that Canada provides the military backbone to the Forward Land Forces brigade in neighbouring Latvia as its framework nation. Ottawa has also repeatedly expressed interest in developing closer defence industrial ties with European allies and companies. It is also diplomatically aligned with Lithuania with respect to Russia. Whereas Cyprus currently holds the presidency, with Ireland next in line to take it on 1 July, Canada will find much more in common with Lithuania, with the result being that the opportunities for collaboration should be more extensive.
Lithuania as Atlanticist and Europeanist in Defence
For six months as of 1 January 2027, Lithuania will have the presidency of the Council of the European Union, the formal body that represents member states’ governments at the EU level. Th presidency of the Council involves chairing most committees and working parties, deciding what is on the agenda in coordination with Ireland and Greece—the two other countries making up the eighteen-month triple-shared presidency—and leads negotiations on behalf of the council with the European Parliament and the Commission. The presidency does not allow the national holder to lead the EU politically nor to set EU foreign policy. It lacks executive authority despite the name and so has no ability to direct the Commission, Parliament, or even the European Council. Indeed, the European Commission is the main executive authority that serves to take a comprehensive European perspective on matters relating to trade as well as the implementation of treaties as well as legislation passed by the European Parliament, the latter of which draws representation from EU citizens. Nevertheless, the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union permits the holder to broker major legislative deals and to shape the long-term priorities on the part of the EU by way of its agenda-setting power.
A major theme that one can expect from Lithuania during its presidency will concern European defence cooperation. That Vilnius would promote more European defence cooperation might surprise those observers accustomed to seeing the Baltic country as being loyal to the United States and Atlanticist in its geopolitical orientation. After all, Lithuania participated in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to the chagrin of Western European countries such as France. In addition to its efforts to join the EU, it accorded much importance to its bilateral relationship with the United States to obtain membership in NATO, which Lithuania has regarded as the sine qua non to its own long-term security. Indeed, it was Dalia Grybauskaitė who, as Lithuanian president, insisted that the Alliance finally develop concrete military plans to defend the Baltic countries. Although Lithuania did cut defence spending to less than one percent during the worst of austerity in the Great Recession, it came to prioritize buying U.S. equipment when it began rebuilding its armed forces after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine and destabilized the Donbas region. Lithuania was the first country to offer lethal military assistance to Ukraine. Lithuania maintained positive relations with the first Trump administration, which respected the Baltic country for its efforts in recapitalizing its military and thus bearing its share of the defence burden.
Yet its Atlanticist posture over the years should not obscure how Lithuania has been cultivating tighter defence linkages with more long-standing members of NATO. Though Lithuania hosts a company of U.S. forces and received significant funding through the European Deterrence Initiative, Germany has arguably become Lithuania’s most significant partner. It is easy to see why. Germany not only provides the bulk of the forward allied presence on Lithuanian territory; it also has made that presence de facto permanent in a manner that few would have anticipated when Germany’s Framework Nation status was first announced. Many had expected Germany to interpret narrowly the NATO-Russia Founding as precluding any significant stationing of combat troops on the territories of Moscow’s former satellites and colonies. Yet the establishment of the permanent presence and the necessary infrastructure to support the deployment has defied those early expectations. That Germany has finally assumed more responsibility for European security by way of its own military expenditures has brought about much positivity among Lithuanians regarding this bilateral relationship.
Lithuania has also promoted European defence industrial cooperation. In fact, the first, and current, European Commissioner for Defence is the Lithuanian Andrius Kubilius. His mandate is to oversee the European Defence Industrial Strategy and to strengthen EU defence industrial capacity by way of addressing key capability gaps, barriers to military mobility, cultivating a competitive space industry, and identifying EU-wide vulnerabilities against cyber and hybrid threats. In this vein, Lithuania continues to buy from the United States, to be sure, including U.S.-made Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters, and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). As of 2025, the State Department reported that “[t]he United States has approximately $640 million worth of active sales cases for U.S.-origin defence articles and services to Lithuania under the Foreign Military Sales program.” However, Vilnius is taking steps to diversify its suppliers and to go about collaborative efforts in procurement as well as in research and development. It participates in the German-led European Sky Shield Initiative to develop an integrated air defence on the continent. The major German defence manufacturer Rheinmetall is building a factory in Lithuania that will produce 155mm artillery ammunition. Lithuania will become the largest foreign operator of French-made CAESAR self-propelled howitzer systems by the end of this decade. Lithuania secured around €1 billion in loans from the European Investment Bank in the last year to support its defence investments for the remainder of this decade, with much of that financing going towards military infrastructure.
That Lithuania balances between buying American and engaging in greater intra-European cooperation gives it much credibility across many EU governments. The problem with France, for example, when it enjoins its European allies to buy more European is that the message is often taken to mean to buy more French. Lithuania cannot be accused of such selfishness. Nor is it much like Poland, which has generally preferred to buy as much American as possible, while going about diversification by way of purchases from South Korea. Lithuania’s record is not perfect, of course. Even with the other Baltic countries of Estonia and Latvia, much more could be done. Coastal defence remains an ongoing national project, and only recently has Lithuania pursued joint procurement. Still, as the 2025 results of the European Defence Fund indicate, Lithuanian innovators are playing a more visible role in the research and development of European defence technologies, doing much more than their Latvian counterparts but remaining behind their Estonian ones.
Of course, Lithuania’s agenda for the presidency goes beyond matters of defence. EU enlargement, particularly with respect to Ukraine and Moldova, and competitiveness are other issues of priority to Lithuania. Nevertheless, in view of a deteriorating security environment, Lithuania is likely to place much emphasis on international security and defence cooperation.
Supporting Ukraine, Containing Russia
Lithuania ranks as one of Ukraine’s most significant supporters. Aside from being the first NATO country to give it lethal military assistance, Lithuania has pursued some politico-military cooperation by way of its involvement in the trinational brigade with Poland and Ukraine, which has taken part in various military exercises humanitarian operations. Lithuania also participates in the Lublin Triangle with those same two countries while being a strong advocate for Ukraine to join both the EU and NATO. Lithuania’s reasons for supporting Ukraine are straightforward. Both countries have a history of struggling with Russian occupation and domination. In historically similar but hardly identical circumstances, they have had their own aspirations for national autonomy and sovereign independence thwarted by Moscow in the past. Both countries have perceived in Russia a major security threat that must be at least contained, if not defeated outright on the battlefield. If Russia is not trying to seize territory, then it is trying to exert political control, using whatever levers that may be available, whether it is local ethnic ties, energy flows, military deployments, corruption, and other vectors of subversion. Ukraine and Lithuania share an interest in reducing Russia’s ability to extend its autocracy beyond its internationally recognized borders.
Supporting Ukraine has become a major feature of the EU’s outward geopolitical orientation. To date, the EU has approved over 190 billion in macro-financial assistance and budget support to state since 2022. Aside from the military aid that member states have given Ukraine on a bilateral basis, the European Peace Facility has financed reimbursements for weapons, ammunition, and training. The EU has lent support for Ukrainian refugees as well as reconstruction of Ukrainian infrastructure and society. Still, with the EU comprising 27 members, internal disagreements have at times prevented even more aid to the beleaguered country. National leaders friendly towards Russia—as former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán had shown—can use institutional veto powers to obstruct EU financial and military assistance to Ukraine.
Lithuania obviously cannot prevent pro-Russian forces shaping the foreign policies of other countries. Member States retain significant latitude in determining their foreign policies and military postures. Even those countries friendly towards Ukraine may feel the temptation to shift their attention inwardly to focus much more on their internal issues. However, Lithuania will use the presidency to revitalize EU support for Ukraine. As foreign minister Kęstutis Budrys noted in an interview with the Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review,
“[it] is natural that questions arise about how long this support will be needed, especially as domestic issues overwhelm national agendas in democratic cycles. But we must remind ourselves: even if there is a ceasefire or some form of peace deal, the entire European security architecture will continue to depend on a strong Ukraine.”
The Implications for Canada
Canada has made a point in the last eighteen months to cultivate ever closer ties with Europe. This intent is manifest in defence policy, where Canada hopes to revitalize its own armed forces in part by accessing EU financial schemes like the Security and Action For Europe (SAFE) regulation and contemplating collaborative projects with European defence firms.
The two countries have much more in common than what massive differences in territorial breadth, geographical location, size, and resource endowments would suggest. Canada was one of the first to provide military assistance to post-Maidan Ukraine when many countries within NATO refrained from doing so. Canada has no troop presence in Lithuania, but it does provide the backbone to the Forward Land Forces deployed in neighbouring Latvia. Any major military contingency that involves Lithuania will implicate Latvia. Baltic militaries do exercise with one another and, in so doing, have come to include Ukraine in their activities. Commercial flows between the two countries are tiny, owing to the tyranny of trade gravity. However, in recognition of the growing security importance of Lithuania, Canada upgraded its diplomatic presence in Vilnius to have an embassy there as recently as 2023. If Canada were ever one day be able to develop its own capacity to export liquified natural gas (LNG) to Europe, it will find a buyer in Lithuania since the port city of Klaipėda is home to a major LNG terminal.
If nothing else, Canada should attend to how Lithuania is promoting greater defence industrial cooperation within Europe. Both Canada and its European allies are attempting to address major capability gaps while reducing overall reliance on the United States. Rules regarding financing and procurement will limit the extent to which Canadian firms could participate in the development of certain capabilities. Nevertheless, the Canadian forces positioned in Latvia suffer from gaps in terms of artillery and munitions, to say nothing of counter-drone measures. Lithuania is similarly attentive to these vulnerabilities. As such, there may be potential to harness European defence industrial policy to allow local NATO forces to improve their deterrence and war-fighting postures. Canada can meaningfully contribute to broader discussions about capability and defence technology development along the Eastern Flank that Lithuania will surely lead.
On the flip side, Lithuania’s occasional frustrations about the pace of defence procurement in Europe should instil Canadian policymakers caution over the prospects for Canada in acquiring European capabilities or co-producing military equipment with European firms. The European defence market has been, and will remain, fragmented and very protectionist. Buying American military hardware was an attractive option because it was also the more reliable option. That calculus may have changed, as of late, given the news that the Trump administration cancelled military orders to foreign buyers, including in Europe. so that it can replenish those stocks that its military campaign against Iran had engendered. Yet the near-term consequence of those cancellations is to increase demand on non-U.S. systems, which in turn may yet create more backlogs as countries start changing queuing lines. Some former Lithuanian lawmakers and producers add that Lithuania has indeed grown too reliant on foreign suppliers, with bureaucratic red tape often penalizing local manufacturers.
With a major advocate for Ukraine taking over the presidency in January, Canada has an opportunity to step up its support. Of course, Canada continues to provide aid to Ukraine by way of loan guarantees and other financial instruments to help support the Ukrainian state and to pay for military assistance given via the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List. Yet Lithuania will seek to shift the narrative about Ukraine. For too long, Canada and its European allies have been content to let the United States take the initiative on matters relating to Ukraine, despite, of course, them offering significant support for that country’s EU and NATO aspirations.
Rather than simply promising to support Ukraine for ‘as long as it takes’, one can expect Lithuania to push its EU partners to develop a long-term strategy to enable at last Ukrainian victory and to contain a revanchist Russia. Lithuania will use the presidency to articulate a positive strategic vision for Europe and will thus shape the agenda so that Ukraine will be better resourced whatever the thinking du jour is in Washington. Canada will be very welcome in those discussions and so should look to be the robust North American link to those efforts.
Image Credit: CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2023– Source: EP via Flickr.
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