Now we have time for a few questions

I invite you to my microphone to introduce yourself,

ask a question and tell to whom you address it. Question for President of the European Commission.

Yesterday announced that in the next seven year financial perspective,

more funds will be allocated for migration and border management in countries that share borders with Russia and Belarus.

However, those are long term plans, so.

What can the European Union do now, considering that the threats at the borders are growing and evolving,

and I am referring to the upcoming ZAI military exercises in several recorded cases of drones flying into Lithuania from Belarus.

And one more question for both what can Lithuania expect from the European Union? As you rightly said.

The long term structural answer is the new modern budget, and as I've explained, we put a strong focus on defense and border protection by drastically increasing the funding, but of course we have to act now,

and the two instruments that are at our disposal for defense and border protection right

now is the safe instrument and For the member states nationally,

the national escape clause.

We have already achieved a lot to help Lithuania cope with the constant pressure in the current budget.

Lithuania has a €357 million EU program that is dedicated to border management and visa policy.

We have implemented it or we have agreed on it in 2021.

And since then we have on a regular basis added money to it,

for example, to boost surveillance capacities, tracking the trains.

I just could see one of the trains going through Lithuania between mainland Russia and Kaliningrad,

but also the financing of the purchase of a helicopter, for example, so these are very concrete examples.

Finally, to cope with the migratory pressure.

We have made available almost 135 million to Lithuania to finance electronic, state of the art,

border surveillance systems, so you see a lot has been done specifically for Lithuania.

Then there is the second layer of instruments now, like safe,

and then there will be the next European long term

answer that is the new budget for the European Union.

We are committed to improving the security of our state border, and Madam President already mentioned the safe instrument,

which is especially important right now, and as I mentioned,

Lithuania has applied for €8 billion from this financial instrument.

€7 billion will be dedicated to establishment and development of our national division until 2030.

About 1 billion will be dedicated to the strengthening of our border

and exactly building the Baltic defense line together with our neighbor Poland.

So I think those resources will come immediately.

They will be spent in the most efficient way.

And Lithuania understands the situation now is very dangerous, very fragile, and we have to be able to detect the

UAVs which are crossing from time to time our border,

and we should be able to shoot them down if needed.

So this is about the safety of our people and we take this very seriously. Last question. How Frozen Russian central bank.

Or we I think there's a,

there we are.

We welcome the Lithuanian proposal in general, as you know, what we do right now,

we take the windfall profits from the mobilized assets and we directly channel them to Ukraine,

either for defense matters or for reconstruction matters.

So far, €3.7 billion have been generated by windfall profits,

and more is to come on a regular basis.

But we are also reflecting on the next steps and best use of these assets, because one thing is very clear Russia, the predator,

has to be held accountable for what it did and has

to has to pay for the damage and for the aggression.

That has to be the principle and therefore we are looking

into an additional use of the windfall profits that are immobilized.

Is committed to require the use of frozen

assets because the windfall profits was a good idea.

It was a good idea, but it's not enough.

We are talking about catastrophic losses Russia is responsible for human lives, infrastructure, buildings,

transport infrastructure, and Russia,

as a country which is responsible for this war, should pay.

So we will be consistently trying to convince some skeptical countries which are still considering the idea of the use of frozen assets,

and they hope that at the end of the day we will have the final result. Good, good.