Remigijus Motuzas proposed as Lithuania’s ambassador to Russia

According to information available to BNS, his designation was Friday supported by the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Motuzas, 57, should replace Ambassador Renatas Norkus who has been representing Lithuania in Russia since January 2012.

Motuzas, who has a degree in philology and a doctoral degree of social education, has worked as a teacher, served in the Ministry of Education and Science, as well as at the Centre Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party and later the Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party.

In 1993–1994, he was education and science adviser to then president Algirdas Brazauskas, working as secretary at the Ministry of Education and Science in 1994–1997 and heading the Department of National Minorities and Lithuanians Living Abroad in 1997–2001.

In 2001, Motuzas joined the diplomatic corps: he has served as minister-adviser at the Lithuanian mission at the Council of Europe, headed the Foreign Ministry’s Administrative Department and the ministry’s state secretary.

In the 2004–2006 period, Motuzas was the minister of education and science, was Lithuania’s ambassador to Sweden in 2006–2011 and the director of the Foreign Ministry’s EU Presidency Department in 2011–2012.

Since January of 2013, Motuzas has been the first deputy government chancellor.

In Lithuania, ambassadors are appointed and dismissed by the president in response to a proposal from the government and a green light from the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.