Lithuania–Sweden relations are the

foreign relations Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

between

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

and

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

. Sweden has an embassy in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

. Lithuania has an embassy in

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

. Both countries are full members of COE,

NB8 Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB8) is a regional co-operation format that includes Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden. Under NB8, regular meetings are held of the Baltic and Nordic countries' Prime Ministers, Spea ...

CBSS The Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) is a regional intergovernmental organisation working on three priority areas: regional identity; regional safety and security; regional sustainability and prosperity. These three priority areas aim ...

, EU and

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

. Sweden has given full support to Lithuania's membership of the EU. Lithuania strongly supported Sweden's

membership.

History

and

were once united by a personal union under the

Polish–Swedish union The Polish–Swedish union was a short-lived personal union between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Kingdom of Sweden between 1592 and 1599. It began when Sigismund III Vasa, elected King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, wa ...

during the reign of King

Sigismund III Vasa Sigismund III Vasa (, ; 20 June 1566 – 30 April 1632 N.S.) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1587 to 1632 and, as Sigismund, King of Sweden from 1592 to 1599. He was the first Polish sovereign from the House of Vasa. Re ...

. Sweden and the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

fought several wars, including in 1600–1611, 1617–1618, 1621–1625, 1626–1629, 1655–1660 and 1701–1706. During the war of 1655–1660, in 1655, Sweden and Lithuania signed the

Union of Kėdainiai The Union of Kėdainiai or Agreement of Kėdainiai ( Lithuanian: ''Kėdainių unija'', Swedish: ''Kėdainiai förbund'') was an agreement between magnates of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the king of the Swedish Empire, Charles X Gustav, that w ...

, according to which Lithuania briefly became a

protectorate A protectorate, in the context of international relations, is a State (polity), state that is under protection by another state for defence against aggression and other violations of law. It is a dependent territory that enjoys autonomy over ...

of the

Swedish crown The krona (; plural: ''kronor''; sign: kr; code: SEK) is the currency of Sweden. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use for the krona; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it but, especi ...

. Diplomatic relations between Sweden and Lithuania were formally established on 21 December 1921. Sweden is one of the first among the few countries in 1944 to recognize the Soviet occupation of the Baltic countries. In 1945, Stockholm extradited to the Soviet Union around 170

Waffen-SS The (; ) was the military branch, combat branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscr ...

-soldiers from the Baltic countries who had fled the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

and found refuge in Sweden. On 15 August 2011,

Swedish Prime Minister The prime minister of Sweden (, "minister of state") is the head of government of the Kingdom of Sweden. The prime minister and their cabinet (the government) exercise executive authority in the Kingdom of Sweden and are subject to the Parlia ...

Fredrik Reinfeldt John Fredrik Reinfeldt (pronounced ; born 4 August 1965) is a Swedish economist, lecturer, former Prime Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014 and chairman of the liberal conservative Moderate Party from 2003 to 2015. He was the last rotating Presi ...

officially apologized to the prime ministers of Estonia,

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

and

in a ceremony in

saying that "Sweden owes its Baltic neighbours a "debt of honour" for turning a blind eye to post-war Soviet occupation" and speaking of "a dark moment" in his country's history. Sweden re-recognized Lithuania's independence on August 27, 1991.

High level visits

In 2001, Lithuanian President

Valdas Adamkus Valdas Adamkus (; born Voldemaras Adamkavičius; November 3, 1926) is a Lithuanian politician, diplomat and civil engineer who served as the fifth and seventh president of Lithuania from 1998 to 2003 and again from 2004 to 2009. Adamku ...

visited Stockholm to discuss Lithuania's integration into the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

and further co-operation of the two states. In February 2009, Lithuanian Prime Minister

Andrius Kubilius Andrius Kubilius (; born 8 December 1956) is a Lithuanian politician who is currently serving as the European Commissioner for Defence Industry and Space in the Second von der Leyen Commission. He previously served as a Member of the European ...

met with Prime Minister of Sweden

in Stockholm. The Prime Ministers discussed energy projects of Lithuania and the

Baltic States The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...

, the situation in the financial markets of Lithuania, Sweden, Europe, and the world. The Swedish Prime Minister also confirmed that the Swedish Government was greatly interested in the stability of the Lithuanian and the Baltic economies and was going to further encourage long-term investment by Swedish banks to Lithuania's economy. In July 2009, President of Lithuania

Dalia Grybauskaitė Dalia Grybauskaitė (; born 1 March 1956) is a Lithuanian politician who served as the eighth president of Lithuania from 2009 to 2019. She is the first and so far only woman to hold the position and in 2014 she became the first President of Li ...

made her first visit to Sweden. She met with Swedish Prime Minister Reinfeldt as well as executives from Swedish banks SEB and

Swedbank Swedbank AB is a Swedish multinational banking group headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. It operates primarily in the Nordic and Baltic regions, offering services such as retail banking, asset management and other financial services. Swedbank ...

to discuss the economic situation in Lithuania.

Agreements

In 1991, the two countries signed a

trade agreement A trade agreement (also known as trade pact) is a wide-ranging taxes, tariff and trade treaty that often includes investment guarantees. It exists when two or more countries agree on terms that help them trade with each other. The most common tra ...

. In January 2000, the two countries signed an agreement on safety enhancement at

nuclear plant A nuclear power plant (NPP), also known as a nuclear power station (NPS), nuclear generating station (NGS) or atomic power station (APS) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power s ...

s. In March the same year, the two countries signed a

nuclear safety Nuclear safety is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "The achievement of proper operating conditions, prevention of accidents or mitigation of accident consequences, resulting in protection of workers, the public and the ...

cooperation agreement. In 2005, the two countries together with

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

signed an agreement on

exclusive economic zone An exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is an area of the sea in which a sovereign state has exclusive rights regarding the exploration and use of marine natural resource, reso ...

s on the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an islan ...

. The economic zones meet in the Dutch Trench, 141 km from the coastline. The new border falls approximately 1.5 km short of the demarcation line under the 1988 agreement between the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and Sweden.

Cooperation

The Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Lithuania was started as Swedenhouse in 2001 and was converted into a Chamber of Commerce in 2005. In 2007, Lithuanian energy company

Lietuvos Energija Ignitis Group (Ignitis grupė AB; former name: Lietuvos Energija UAB) is a state-owned energy holding company located in Vilnius, Lithuania. The Group’s core business is focused on operating Lithuania’s electricity distribution network (Network ...

and Sweden's Svenska Kraftnat announced they were considering a possible linking of the two countries' energy grids. This resulted in the two companies signing a memorandum of understanding with

Latvenergo Latvenergo is a state-owned electric utility company in Latvia. Latvenergo Group provides energy supply services in the Baltics. Overview The Group comprises the parent company Latvenergo AS, with decisive influence, and five subsidiaries. ...

from

in 2009. Due to be completed in spring 2016, the project aims at building a link - a cable of approximately 350 km in length across the bottom of the Baltic Sea, and converter stations to connect

electric power transmission Electric power transmission is the bulk movement of electrical energy from a generating site, such as a power plant, to an electrical substation. The interconnected lines that facilitate this movement form a ''transmission network''. This is ...

systems of Lithuania and Sweden. A preliminary total cost of the project is between EUR 516-738 million. The cable, called

NordBalt NordBalt (also formerly known as SwedLit) is a submarine power cable between Klaipėda in Lithuania and Nybro in Sweden, operating since 2015. The purpose of the cable is to facilitate the trading of power between the Baltic and Nordic electr ...

was commissioned in 2015.

EU

Sweden joined the EU in

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

. Lithuania joined the EU in

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

Lithuania joined

in 2004. Sweden joined

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

Resident diplomatic missions

* Lithuania has an embassy in

. * Sweden has an embassy in

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lithuania-Sweden relations

Bilateral relations of Sweden

History

High level visits

Agreements

Cooperation

EU

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

Resident diplomatic missions

See also

References