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But the head of government says he is not asking for changes.
According to her, EVS considers quite a few issues that are assigned to the executive branch and “many of these agreements must be implemented at the governmental level later”, but it does not promise to seek to change the established tradition in Lithuania.
“Obviously, these discussions are very relevant for the Government, especially those related to vaccination, with the supply of vaccines. I don’t really have great ambitions to sit on the board of directors, but I think there are many issues of this type in which the participation of the Government would be more practical due to the content of the issues under discussion, “I. Šimonytė said at a press conference on Wednesday.
He emphasized that the SVE is also considering issues that, according to the established tradition and the Constitution, are the prerogative of the President, they are those that the President decides together with the Government, but there are also only decisions at the Government level.
“It is not my prerogative to change the situation or any requirement to change the situation, I think it is necessary to work in the best way for Lithuania all the time,” he stressed.
The idea of the president being replaced by Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė at EU summits has been raised publicly in recent weeks by Matas Maldeikis and Jurgis Razma, members of the Union of the Homeland – Lithuanian Christian Democrats. They argue that the European Council is dominated by issues that fall within the government’s purview during a pandemic.
After Lithuania’s accession to the EU, both the president and the prime minister attended the summits for some time, but during the presidency of President Dalia Grybauskaitė, the tradition of the president attending the European Council was established.
Asta Skaisgirytė, adviser to President G. Nausėda on foreign policy, says that the proposals by some members of the conservative Seimas faction to delegate the Prime Minister to European Union summits are neither constitutionally based nor take into account established practice.
According to her, this question began to be raised artificially after the Seimas elections to achieve the objectives of internal politics, and the current procedure “works well and could continue to work.”
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