Lithuania to appoint new ambassadors to Germany, Italy, Vatican

Darius Jonas Semaska, the outgoing ambassador to the Netherlands, is likely to take office as ambassador to Germany on Jul. 11.

Ricardas Slepavicius, the director of the Foreign Ministry’s Personnel Department, is planned to be appointed as the country’s envoy to Italy starting on Aug. 1.

Petras Zapolskas, the director of the ministry’s State and Diplomatic Protocol Department, should become the new ambassador to the Holy See on Aug. 4.

Semaska, who started his diplomatic career in 1994, has in the past worked in the OSCE mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina and has served as a counselor at the Lithuanian embassy in Washington and as Lithuania’s ambassador to Hungary. He worked as President Dalia Grybauskaite’s chief foreign policy advisor between 2010 and 2012 before taking up his current post of Lithuania’s ambassador to the Netherlands.

Slepavicius has worked at Lithuania’s embassies in Russia and Ankara and at the country’s Permanent Representation in the European Union, and has served as Lithuania’s consular general in Kaliningrad.

Zapolskas took part in negotiations on the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Lithuania and in talks on cooperation agreements with Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia. He has served as Lithuania’s ambassador to Italy and Sweden and has also worked at the country’s embassy in Russia.

Lithuanian ambassadors are appointed by the president on the government’s recommendation and at the consent of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.