ABSTRACT
This chapter presents Lithuania, a Baltic member state of the European Union (EU), and a net recipient from the EU budget with prospects of becoming a net payer. The chapter starts with a general introduction to Lithuania and the country’s path to EU membership. It further gives a compact overview of Lithuania’s political system and key figures on its population and economy. The chapter continues with key highlights of political and public debates in Lithuania about European integration. The substantive third section of the chapter outlines the common patterns that emerged in the focus group discussions in Lithuania, particularly across the discussed scenarios presented to the participants and also between and within the three sociodemographic groups. The findings show that, overall, the Lithuanian participants strongly supported EU membership, European integration and the idea of transnational solidarity. However, when it came to tangible, particularly financial contributions to transnational solidarity, Lithuanian participants often turned to the image of a “small and poor” country that was willing but “objectively” unable to help.
