Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda on Wednesday signed a decree approving the line-up of the new cabinet without the environment and justice ministers.
Sigitas Podėnas, head of the Nature Research Centre, had been proposed for environment minister, and Virginijus Kulikauskas, a former head of the Lithuanian Prison Service, for justice minister.
Prime Minister-designate Gintautas Paluckas said he did not formally submit the two ministerial candidates to Nausėda after certain “limitations in their competence or profile” were revealed during meetings with the president.
Nausėda approved the Nemunas Dawn’s third candidate, Ignas Hofmanas, a farmer and chairman of the Lithuanian Agriculture Council, as agriculture minister.
The president endorsed all the other ministerial candidates proposed by the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) and the Union of Democrats “For Lithuania”.
The LSDP’s approved candidates include Kęstutis Budrys, the president’s chief national security adviser, as foreign minister, MP Dovilė Šakalienė as defence minister, MP Raminta Popovienė as education minister, Vladislav Kondratovič, administration director at the Vilnius District Municipality, as interior minister, MP Eugenijus Sabutis as transport minister, and Inga Ruginienė, a former chairwoman of the Lithuanian Trade Union Confederation, as social security and labour minister.
Rimantas Šadžius, a former member of the European Court of Auditors, will become finance minister, and MP Šarūnas Birutis will serve as culture minister. Marija Jakubauskienė, head of the Health Sciences Institute at Vilnius University’s Medical Faculty, will take up the post of health minister.
The Union of Democrats “For Lithuania” has nominated MP Lukas Savickas for economy and innovation minister and Žygimantas Vaičiūnas, who served as energy minister in Saulius Skvernelis’ 2016–2020 cabinet, for the same role in the new government.
The new ministers are expected to be sworn in next week when the government programme is approved.
The ruling coalition of the LSDP, the Union of Democrats “For Lithuania”, and the Nemunas Dawn party holds 86 out of 141 seats in the new parliament.
New candidates
Žemaitaitis, the leader of the Nemunas Dawn, said he is going to nominate the persons who were supposed to be appointed vice ministers as the party’s candidates for environment and justice ministers.
“They were projected for vice-ministerial positions,” Žemaitaitis told reporters at the Seimas on Wednesday.
He said he has already named the new candidates for the ministers of environment and justice to Prime Minister-designate Paluckas.
Žemaitaitis said a well-known public figure with an academic degree will be nominated for environment minister. There are also two candidates for justice minister, a male and a female, he added.
According to the Nemunas Dawn leader, the rejected candidates for environment and justice ministers, Podėnas and Kulikausas, were not suitable for the prime minister, not the president. In his words, they will be offered vice-ministerial positions.
No EU presidency priorities
Nausėda said he rejected the proposed candidates for environment and justice ministers as they were unable to identify their priorities for the upcoming Lithuanian EU presidency.
“I considered not only the candidates’ qualifications but also their insights into the future, and one of the most important questions was their priorities when it comes to the fact that Lithuania will take over the EU presidency in the first half of 2027,” the president told reporters on Wednesday.
“These two candidates failed to answer this question, and this was a major drawback for me. I think it is one of the most important things for a candidate to be clear about what they intend to achieve during the presidency,” he added.
According to him, there were also doubts about some candidates’ managerial skills.
“With the greatest respect for their academic qualifications, the ministerial position requires some special knowledge, but more importantly, it requires an overall view of the sector, the ability to have a good grasp of the sector’s interests, and to be prepared to stand very firmly behind the sector,” the president said.
Nausėda does not rule out that the new environment and justice ministers will be appointed by the time the government programme is adopted, which is expected to happen next week.
Overall, the president described the Paluckas government as more capable than the outgoing Šimonytė administration.
He also welcomed the new cabinet’s draft programme published on Wednesday.
“From today’s perspective, I find the government programme very encouraging, especially in the area of social policy,” the president said.
The government programme is scheduled to be put before the Seimas on Thursday, and lawmakers are scheduled to vote on it on December 12. Once the programme is approved, the 19th government will start its work.
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