Nausėda moves to repeal Lithuania’s nuclear ban

Article 137 of Lithuania's constitution does two things: it bars weapons of mass destruction from Lithuanian soil and prohibits foreign military bases. President Gitanas Nausėda wants the entire article deleted. After meeting parliamentary faction leaders on 2 July, he said almost all agreed it was obsolete. His proposal: repeal, not amendment.

Changing the Lithuanian constitution requires two separate votes in the Seimas (Lithuania's parliament), each passing with at least 94 out of 141 MPs, spaced at least three months apart. The governing coalition holds 75 seats. Faction leaders may agree in principle. Delivering a constitutional majority twice is a different exercise.

The Clause Nobody Talks About

Most coverage focuses on the nuclear ban. But Article 137 also prohibits foreign military bases, and Lithuania already hosts substantial allied forces. Germany plans to station a roughly 5,000-strong brigade there by end of 2027. Recent NATO exercises brought thousands more onto Lithuanian soil.

Article 137 was written in 1992 to ensure Soviet forces left. Its text has not changed, but practice has. No public legal explanation clarifies whether rotating allied deployments count as something different from permanent "foreign military bases," or whether practice has simply outrun the constitutional text. Deleting Article 137 would resolve that ambiguity — but Lithuanian leaders have not publicly argued the current wording is causing them operational problems.

Legal Room, Not Nuclear Weapons

Acting defence minister Robertas Kaunas framed repeal as ensuring Lithuania can draw on the full range of NATO capabilities. Nausėda said there are no immediate plans to store nuclear weapons and that Lithuania would stay within the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the global pact that limits nuclear-weapons possession to five recognised states (Internazionale/Reuters).

Deleting a constitutional clause removes one lock. Several others remain. NATO nuclear sharing works through US custody of weapons, dual-capable aircraft, trained crews, and alliance-level planning. Only a small number of Western European states currently host such arrangements. Moving weapons eastward would require hardened storage vaults, base upgrades, US certification of aircrews to handle nuclear munitions, and a command chain governing who authorises release. That infrastructure takes years to build. No verified US or NATO decision to station weapons in Lithuania has surfaced (CNBC).

Lithuania Is Not the Only One Asking

Finland lifted its own nuclear-weapons ban on 17 June with a parliamentary vote of 125 to 61. Finnish officials insisted no peacetime basing was planned. Yet the parliamentary debate exposed real disagreement about whether removing legal restraints strengthens deterrence or invites countermeasures without producing usable capability.

Poland's National Security Bureau chief has said entry into nuclear sharing is a real possibility, with talks with Washington planned. Rzeczpospolita placed Lithuania's move inside a broader eastern-flank push for equal deterrence status. But expanding nuclear sharing would need decisions by NATO's Nuclear Planning Group (the alliance body where nuclear posture is discussed), not just national legal changes.

The argument Lithuanian leaders make is intuitive: a frontline NATO state should not constitutionally exclude alliance options before a crisis arrives. The counterargument is equally concrete: legal eligibility without infrastructure, aircraft, trained crews, and a US decision to deploy is political signalling, not military capability. Whether repeal changes NATO posture or only Lithuania's legal vocabulary depends on votes in Vilnius and decisions that no allied capital has yet made public.