"The Ministry of Finance will seriously consider the possibility of applying to the General Court of the European Union with a request to assess whether the partially positive assessment by the European Commission applied to Lithuania complies with the regulation of this instrument. The project progress assessment methodology was approved long after the countries agreed with the EC on their obligations, so there are doubts about the proportionality of its application, compliance with the provisions of the EU regulation and the principles of legitimate expectations. We do not believe that the EC correctly implements the powers granted to it by the regulation," Minister of Finance Gintarė Skaistė noted.
Lithuania will seriously consider the possibility to apply to the GC. If it were decided to implement this process, the Ministry of Finance would submit a request to the Ministry of Justice to submit a position to the Government. After receiving the approval of the Government, procedural documents would be prepared, which would be submitted to the ECJ by the Ministry of Justice. The claim must be filed within 2 months from the publication of the EC decision.
We would like to note that on 30 November 2022 after Lithuania submitted the first payment request for the implementation of the plan "New Generation Lithuania", on 28 February 2023 the EC provided an assessment of the first payment request and announced that over half a billion euros of funds will reach Lithuania: 31 milestones out of 33 submitted have been approved. For the implemented reforms in 2023 we have received EUR 542 million, which is already almost a quarter of the planned amount.
Regarding 2 milestones (tax reform – milestones 142, 144 of the plan NGL) the EC made a decision to temporarily suspend disbursement of EUR 26 million until they are finally achieved. In December last year, the EC assessed the additional information provided by Lithuania on the actions taken and considers milestone 144 "Proposals prepared on the basis of a detailed analysis regarding the expansion of environmental taxes and taxation of other sources less detrimental to economic growthwere submitted to the Seimas" fully achieved.
The EC positively assessed the Government's proposals to the Seimas regarding the changes to the immovable property tax. Changes to the environmental taxes have already been presented earlier and the EC has already recognized that this part of the milestone has been achieved.
After evaluating the additional information provided by Lithuania on the actions taken regarding milestone 142 "Proposals prepared on the basis of a detailed analysis regarding the abolishment of tax exemptions or special taxation regimes were submitted to the Seimas ", the EC considers the milestone to have reached 50%. In total, after deducting a part of the already paid pre-financing to Lithuania additionally for these 2 milestones the amount of EUR 14.882 million will be disbursed in May.
Lithuania submitted an analysis of tax exemptions and special tax regimes to the EC with arguments for which individual tax exemptions are not abolished. In implementing the aforementioned milestone, the Government submitted to the Seimas draft amendments to the Law on Corporate Income Tax, the Law on Personal Income Tax, the Law on Excise Duty and the Law on Immovable Property Tax, which propose to abolish various tax exemptions. These changes, in Lithuania's assessment, undoubtedly significantly contribute to the achievement of milestone142 and fulfil Lithuania's obligations stipulated in the plan "New Generation Lithuania".
In total, the plan “New Generation Lithuania” foresees reforms and investment projects worth almost EUR 2.3 billion in grants and EUR 1.55 billion in loans.