Seimas Votes 99 to 13 to Proceed With Deleting Article 137, Lithuania's Constitutional Ban on Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Bases

The procedural vote advances the amendment without authorising any deployment. Kasčiūnas set out the case in terms of options rather than intentions: removing the ban does not mean stationing anything, but a nuclear-capable allied aircraft or a ship carrying nuclear weapons might need to pass through Lithuanian territory for deterrence purposes, and the constitution should not be the obstacle. Motuzas said Lithuania must not become the weaker link in the alliance's regional posture. Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen of the Liberal Movement: "Today's vote is about ensuring that we are not weaker." Žemaitaitis argued that Russia and Belarus would use the change for propaganda and that nuclear-armed allies could defend Lithuania without it. Vėgėlė's objection went to the second clause: the Constitutional Court has held that bases established by allies and remaining under Lithuanian control can operate, so the article as written already accommodates Germany's Panzerbrigade 45 at Rūdninkai and Rukla and the American rotation now on its way.

The nuclear half is the one the region has moved on. Finland repealed its statutory ban in June, has joined the nuclear-sharing working groups and this month became the tenth partner in France's deterrence initiative; the three Baltic states remain outside the working groups. Nausėda's stated reason in July for removing rather than amending the article was not to become "a grey zone within NATO", and Olekas said then that Lithuania "does not plan to host nuclear weapons on its territory during peacetime". Nothing in Tuesday's debate revised that.

The bases clause will matter before the nuclear one does: on 23 September the defence minister put a permanent American base to the Pentagon's policy chief, and the constitution he serves under bars it until the second vote on 12 January at the earliest. The June coalition agreement wrote a permanent US presence in; the Constitutional Court's reading lets an allied base operate under Lithuanian control, which is not the arrangement Washington runs anywhere in Europe. With coalition and opposition aligned, 94 in October is arithmetic; the only route by which the calendar slips is the referendum demand, and Nemunas Dawn has 13 votes. Signal No. 151 set the vote beside the brigade already on the ground and the rotation on trains.