State Defence Council approves 2017 intelligence priorities

Živilė Šatūnienė, senior national security adviser to President Dalia Grybauskaitė, did not elaborate on the priorities and needs but said that specification of the intelligence information to intelligence institutions “help us to better ensure national security, as the services are directed to work and earmark their biggest resources (…) to the latest threats and the relevant threats.”

“Nearly everything that was discussed at the meeting of the State Defence Council is classified information. As far as we understand, the information would be highly interesting to services of countries that are hostile to Lithuania, therefore, I will not even say what our priorities will be for the sake of the safety of us all,” Šatūnienė told journalists at the President’s Office.

The State Defence Council approves intelligence needs and priorities for every year in a classified document that assigns technical tasks to intelligence institutions, namely, the State Security Department and the Defence Ministry’s Second Investigations Department.

“They include certain threats, menaces and tendencies that the services should pay attention to, redistribute their resources accordingly and focus their collection and analytical efforts and actions in a way to ensure the country’s national security in cyber, energy, economic and all other defense areas,” said Šatūnienė.

The State Defence Council also discussed the security situation.

Headed by the president, the council also includes the prime minister, the parliamentary speaker, the defense minister and the chief of defence.