PM claims President blackening name of Lithuanian government to EU leaders

“The spread of negative information about the government started just as soon as our work began, even outside Lithuania. I am a patient man, I am the Prime Minister and it is very unpleasant to get into disputes with the parliament speaker or the president. The first huge blow for me was when I went for the first visit to Latvia as a prime minister. The Latvian president said to me immediately that he has received information from our Presidential Palace that the government was corrupt. The same situation was repeated in Estonia,” he said on on LRT programme Dėmesio centre.

The prime minister added that the same situation repeated when the Lithuanian delegation went to Germany on an official visit and met with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Butkevičius said that “after the meeting, I asked the Chancellor, from where she has got the information about allegedly corrupt government. She replied that the information was from Lithuania, from the Presidential Palace”.

When asked about this whole situation, and whether the prime minister engage in an open political war against the president, Butkevičius said:

“No, I will not turn it into a war. We have been working like that for the three past years. Now, as the elections are coming close, the political field is changing.”

The Prime Minister also said that he and Lithuania’s president knew that the transcripts of calls would be made public as part of an investigation into the controversy around Vijūnėlė manor in Druskininkai.

“While the pre-trial investigation was still taking place, I was told that it is likely to be stopped and the call records shall be made public. This is what the president told me,” he said.

He also said he will wait for his legal advisers conclusions on Wednesday on whether Environment Minister Kęstutis Trečiokas lied in relation to the scandal surrounding the so-called Vijūnėlė manor in Druskininkai.

Butkevičius said he will force the Environment Minister to resign if it turns out that the minister lied, or will submit his resignation to the president if Trečiokas refuses to step down.

Last week the Social Democratic Party claimed that the President Dalia Grybauskaitė was putting pressure on the government and possibly seeks to push out so a new minority government could be formed.

LRT