Lithuania’s Linkevičius tight-lipped on candidates for EU foreign policy chief

“I don’t want to juggle with names. We have our criteria and we have voiced them on numerous times,” Linkevičius told journalists on Wednesday.

EU leaders will gather for a summit over the upcoming weekend to decide on the next EU foreign policy chief and president of the European Council.

According to media reports, Mogherini remains among the likely candidates to become the next high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy. It is also claimed that, as the Baltic states and Poland have expressed concern about her pro-Russian stance, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk or former Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis might be offered to assume the position of the European Council president.

State leaders, however, have not commented in public yet on the candidates.

“Let’s hope, especially taking into account current affairs, that the person will have proper knowledge of the Eastern policy, also the policy related to Russia, and will have a principled stance. Those would be our criteria,” Linkevičius said.

In his words, the distribution of positions will be determined by many criteria, including geographic representation, gender balance and the political orientation.

Lithuania will be represented at the summit by President Dalia Grybauskaitė.

EU leaders failed to reach agreement on the key positions in the middle of July.