LITHUANIA STRUGGLING TO MEET SCHENGEN REQUIREMENTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 VILNIUS 000013

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/04/2017
TAGS: PGOV PREL EUN LH
SUBJECT: LITHUANIA STRUGGLING TO MEET SCHENGEN REQUIREMENTS

Classified By: Pol/Econ Chief Rebecca Dunham for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d
)


1. (C) Summary. Lithuania is in a race to meet Schengen
requirements by early 2008, the anticipated date of Schengen
expansion. Despite a contracting and spending spree in
December 2006, Lithuania will struggle to meet the early 2008
deadline for implementation of Schengen requirements at its
border checkpoints. End Summary.

Lithuania rushing to meet Schengen requirements
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2. (C) Commander of the State Border Guard Service Saulius
Stripeika told us that Lithuania will struggle to implement
the necessary upgrades to meet its Schengen requirements by
early 2008. On the margins of an EXBS donation ceremony
December 19, Stripeika and his staff described an
interministerial conference the government had held earlier
that day on Lithuania's entry into the Schengen space.
Stripeika said that Lithuania's support for Portugal's
proposal to open the Schengen space to the ten new members of
Europe by 2008 had been a political decision on the part of
the GOL, but that the government institutions charged to
implement reforms in fact need more time. The Ministry of
Interior's Director for EU Affairs, Olegas Skinderskis,
admitted to us January 8 that meeting the Schengen
requirements by early 2008 would be a challenge, but that the
government would do everything it could to make the date.


3. (SBU) According to the Interior Ministry, 72 percent of
Lithuania's Schengen Facility funds for 2004-2007 (Euro 179
million in total) was obligated in December 2006, as the
Ministry rushed to move on reforms following the EU's
December 5 decision to allow the ten new members to enter
Schengen under a modified version of Schengen Information
System I. (The EU's failure to implement the Schengen
Information System II had postponed Schengen's enlargement,
drawing sharp criticism from the GOL.) Parliamentarian
Petras Austrevicius complained publicly January 8 that the
GOL had rushed the procurements through in the final days of
December and that the projects were not well-planned and
likely not to be implemented effectively. Vice Minister of
the Interior Ciupaila said the GOL would be unable to
implement electronic surveillance of Lithuania's border with
Belarus and the Kaliningrad region of Russia by the time the
GOL wants to enter Schengen. It would be possible to cover
only about 60km of the 1000km of border with Russia and
Belarus with the currently allocated funds. He suggested
that the funds instead be used on other Schengen upgrades and
that the border surveillance project be implemented with
2007-2013 EU funds.

Lithuania must improve security along external borders
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4. (C) Director of the Interior Ministry's International
Relations and EU Department Olegas Skinderskis told us that
Lithuania did have a commitment to improve security along the
border with Belarus and Russia, but that implementation of
the electronic surveillance project was probably not
necessary to enter Schengen. "It just means we'll have to
use more people," he said, refuting public comments by Member
of the European Parliament Justas Paleckis that if the border
remains insecure, "the doors to Schengen will open later."
Asked whether he was worried about entering Schengen as
anticipated in 2008, Skinderskis told us, "we have to see,
but it is our goal," adding that the press had taken a "glass
half empty" view of the situation. The Interior Ministry
noted that the GOL also must install surveillance hardware in
the Curonian Lagoon and the Baltic Sea, upgrade its
international airports, develop and integrate a digital radio
communication system, and in some cases construct or
reconstruct external border checkpoints by early 2008 in
order to enter Schengen at the earliest possibility.


5. (SBU) Speaking of the border checkpoints, Stripeika told
us in December that the Border Guards were rushing to meet
their procurement goals, but that construction and equipment
upgrades of external checkpoints are only the first step.
Lithuania still must develop and introduce a national
Schengen information system, which requires laying the
regulatory bases to apply Schengen rules, he said. This will
require an interministerial process at least, he said, and
may require action by the parliament. Once adopted, new
rules and new equipment will require training programs that
the service has not begun to consider, he said. Skinderskis
agreed that based on recommendations by the European
Commission, he believed implementation of the national
Schengen information system to be a greater challenge to
Lithuania's Schengen hopes than physical security.


6. (C) The MFA's point man on Schengen integration, Head of

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the Consular Department Vaidotas Verba, complained to us in
June 2006 that the political scrambling following the
government's collapse that summer impeded the government from
moving forward on executive functions required to implement
Schengen reforms. The government was incapable, he said at
that time, of making the necessary interministerial
decisions. He expects the Consular Department to be able to
meet its obligations under the Schengen Accords and views
recent GOL Schengen-compliance efforts as a firm step in the
right direction.

Comment
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7. (C) Political will for joining the Schengen space as a
sign of deeper integration in the EU remains strong, even if
the bureaucracy has failed to move quickly to implement
Schengen requirements. A failure to join the Schengen space
at the earliest time the EU allows would be a setback for the
Kirkilas government. Like Lithuania's failure last year
(under the previous government's watch) to qualify for the
Euro, such an outcome would be construed here as a GOL
failure to meet its central strategic goal of integrating as
quickly as possible into important European arrangements.
KELLY