The opposition Democratic Union For Lithuania political group in the Lithuanian parliament Seimas has announced it has collected enough signatures to launch an interpellation against Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis.
“We have collected a sufficient number of signatures [...]. We will hand the interpellation over for registration today,” Lukas Savickas of the opposition political group told BNS on Thursday.
Under the Statute of the Seimas, an interpellation against a minister can be initiated by at least one-fifth of MPs, ie at least 29. Once the minister receives the questions, he or she has two weeks to answer them in writing.
In the interpellation, the foreign minister is asked to give explanations regarding the developments surrounding the transit of sanctioned Russian goods via Lithuania to Kaliningrad and the circumstances related to the opening of a Taiwanese representative office in Lithuania.
In particular, Landsbergis is being asked why “Russian propagandists”, and not Lithuania, were the first to report about the sanctions against the transit of goods to Kaliningrad and the first “to take over the public information domain”.
The opposition first announced its plans to initiate an interpellation motion against Landsbergis this summer, after a scandal broke out over the transit of sanctioned Russian goods via Lithuania.
On June 17, Lithuania halted the movement of some Russian goods via its territory to Kaliningrad after the EU sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine came into force. Vilnius then said it followed the Commission’s guidance that banned the transit.
After the Kremlin called the restrictions a blockade of its Kaliningrad region and threatened to retaliate, the Commission issued its updated guidance to allow rail transit which resumed in late July.
Read more: Read more: Lithuania and Kaliningrad – updates
In addition, the opposition asks about the nomination of Arnoldas Pranckevičius, then deputy foreign minister, for Lithuania’s ambassador to the European Union, even though he did not have the status of a career diplomat at the time.
Also, the opposition wants explanations regarding the appointment of Aurelijus Zykas as Lithuania’s ambassador to Tokyo, and the appointment of Paulius Lukauskas, a former adviser to Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė, as the head of Lithuania’s Trade Representation in Taipei.
The foreign minister is also asked to provide explanations about the circumstances surrounding the opening of the Taiwanese representative office in Vilnius which worsened the country’s relations with China.
According to the interpellation procedure, the parliament sets up a special commission that recommends whether or not to accept the answers provided by the minister concerned.
If it proposes not to accept the answers and to express no confidence in the minister, at least 71 members of the 141-seat parliament must support such a resolution in a secret ballot for it to be passed.
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