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This week, the elder of the TS-LKD faction in the Seimas, Radvilė Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė, informed her colleagues of the faction in a letter about a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs explaining what shapes Lithuania’s position in the European Council and who appoints the EVS delegation. This letter was successfully received by the ELTA news agency.
As indicated in the certificate from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was also received by ELTA, the European Affairs Committee of the Seimas requested an explanation “on the preparation, coordination, representation and reporting of Lithuania’s positions in the European Council. ”.
R. Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė, when reporting on the content of the clarification received by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a letter sent to members of the Conservative faction, indicated that there are arguments to affirm that the President could be represented by the Head of Government instead of the president. At the same time, it is claimed that the current situation, when Lithuania is represented solely by the president, is not legally justified.
“It turned out that essentially all legal regulation (Constitutional Law on” Membership of the Republic of Lithuania in the European Union “, which is an integral part of the Constitution of Lithuania; Article 27 of the Statute of the Seimas and Government Resolution” On Coordination of Matters of the EU “) that the positions are prepared by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania and must be represented and reported to the Seimas by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Lithuania, who is clearly identified among the participants of EVS meetings”, R Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė writes in a message to the faction.
As the conservative points out in the letter, the current legal regulation does not give the president the right to represent EVS “unilaterally”, and the fact that the Lithuanian president so far does so is simply a consequence of the “established faulty practice” .
“The current regulation does not provide the President of Lithuania with a legal basis and a fluid mechanism to represent Lithuanian positions in the EVS. Therefore, President EVT is considered to represent Lithuania unilaterally without a reasonable legal basis, but only due to established faulty practice, ”the letter says.
It is said that there is a possibility of not sending a chairman to EVS now
Referring to the explanation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, R. Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė points out to the colleagues of the faction that if the current legal regulation were strictly observed, all powers already allow the president not to grant Lithuania the right to represent the position from Lithuania. in the European Council.
“From the information provided it was clear that the composition of the delegation to each EVS is determined by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania, that is, an integral part of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania. Consequently, it follows that the European Affairs Committee, as a mandate from Lithuania’s position and for which the Government is responsible, may recommend that the Government strictly follow the current legal regulation and represent Lithuania’s position to delegate a delegation headed by the Prime Minister.
The question of the representation of the EVS generates tensions: the opinions of G. Nausėda and I. Šimonytė differ
In recent months, the question raised by most conservatives that the current practice should be abandoned, when Lithuania is represented in the EVS only by the head of the country, has caused considerable friction with G. Nausėda. Representatives of the governing authorities have repeatedly expressed the view that it would be much more effective if Lithuania’s positions in the EVS were represented by the Head of Government. According to them, the change in practice during Dalia Grybauskaitė is due to the fact that a large part of the EVS agenda consists of COVID-19 governance issues and internal policy powers, which are naturally the prerogatives of the Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė has said that depending on the content of the meetings, the Head of Government and the President of Lithuania could represent EVS alternately. However, G. Nausėda has repeatedly stated that he does not see the need to change current practice. According to the president, it is intolerable and unacceptable to ask whether it should continue to represent Lithuania in EVS, while the Government has many unresolved issues regarding the crisis caused by COVID-19.
In response to this position of the president, the representatives of the conservatives did not hide their intention to present a law regulating the representation of Lithuania in the EVS in the spring session. The Delfi portal announced it in February. For his part, the president has said that if the Seimas approves the amendments that regulate representation in the EVS, he would veto them.
Matas Maldeikis, one of the promoters of said bill, a member of the conservative faction, told Eltai this week that a law is being prepared that would put the president on the European agenda and allow the head of government to represent Lithuania in EVS. . . At the same time, the politician noted that other ways to reach a compromise with the president are being explored.
They do not rule out the possibility of resorting to the Constitutional Court: but the expert is skeptical
Politicians supporting the initiative to change the current practice of representation in the EVS have said that the Constitutional Court (CC) could also provide an explanation on the representation of Lithuania in the EVS. However, one of the creators of the Lithuanian Constitution, Professor Vytautas Sinkevičius from Mykolas Romeris University (MRU), says that the president has the right to participate in all EVS meetings and that this right cannot be restricted by law or other legal acts. .
Among the skeptics of the conservative initiative on the EVS are those who say that the objective of changing the representation of the EVS right now is “insincere”, because more than a decade ago, under the government of Andrius Kubilis, the country’s practice of being represented by the President was established.
