Poland and Lithuania open Via Baltica road connection between them

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s president, Karol Nawrocki, and his Lithuanian counterpart, Gitanas Nausėda, have attended a ceremony to mark the opening of a section of highway across their border that is part of Via Baltica, a route running from Estonia to Poland.

The leaders emphasised that the new connection will not only serve the economic development of the region, but also bolster security by providing a route for military transport, including potential rapid deployment to the Baltic states.

“Via Baltica creates new opportunities for cooperation in terms of jobs and economic projects,” said Nawrocki. “[But] the connection we are officially opening today is much more than just another transport route for us, the nations of central Europe.”

“It is a link that strengthens our relationships, brings our societies closer together, and contributes to the resilience of our region,” he continued.

Nawrocki also noted that the connection between Poland and Lithuania – two countries that for centuries formed a joint commonwealth – has an important “symbolic dimension, uniting two nations with a shared, glorious history and common values…[of] sovereignty, freedom, mutual respect and solidarity”.

Nausėda likewise declared that this is a “modern road built on centuries of trust and unity between our nations” and would help “strengthen Europe’s security and resilience”.

Via Baltica, part of the longer European route E67, is a major infrastructure project to link the three Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, to central and western Europe through Poland. A separate endeavour, Rail Baltica, will enhance train connections between them.

Roads already exist along the route, but they are being upgraded to highways. At yesterday’s opening, Nausėda noted that it now possible to travel from Lithuania to Lisbon in Portugal entirely on highways.

“You can now reach Warsaw in about four and a half to five hours. That would have been unimaginable 20 or 25 years ago, when the trip took nearly two days,” he said, quoted by Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT.

Nawrocki’s office, meanwhile, noted that the route has “military and defence significance for NATO’s eastern flank [as] it significantly improves the alliance’s military transport capabilities and the potential rapid deployment of military units in the Baltic states”.

European route E67, including Via Baltica from Warsaw to Tallinn (source: Wikimedia Maps/OpenStreetMap)

During their meeting today, Nawrocki and Nausėda also pointed to other recent efforts to closely bind their two countries and the region together, such as the moment earlier this year when the Baltic states cut their links to Russia’s electricity grid and instead connected to the EU network via Poland.

In recent years, Poland has increasingly reoriented its energy, trade and military ties northwards, towards the Baltic and Nordic region, where countries have a particularly acute sense of the Russian threat, based on proximity and history

NATO’s five biggest defence spenders this year, as a proportion of national GDP, are Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Norway. Denmark, Finland and Sweden are also in the top ten.

The region around the border between Poland and Lithuania, often referred to as the Suwałki Gap, is seen as a particularly strategic area, as it is sandwiched between the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Russia’s ally Belarus, meaning it could become a potential chokepoint in the event of war.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Mikołaj Bujak/KPRP

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.