Lithuanian PM Gintautas Paluckas steps down

Brussels – The government crisis in Vilnius has officially erupted. Premier Gintautas Paluckas has stepped down from the leadership of the executive and the Social Democratic Party. The move comes against the backdrop of an investigation into potential financial crimes linked to his companies, which was making the work of his three-party majority increasingly difficult. 

The announcement came this morning (31 July), but it had been in the air for days. The Lithuanian Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas stepped down from the leadership of the government, which he held since December,  submitting his resignation to the President of the Republic Gitanas Nausėda. 

The resigning premier announced his decision in a letter published on the website of the Lietuvos Socialdemokratu Partija (LSPD), of which he became party chief only last May. “Seeing how the scandals fueled (by the oppositions, ed.) are hindering the work of the government, I feel that I cannot turn our coalition and cabinet into hostages,” Paluckas wrote in the letter, in which he apologized for the “many mistakes” made in his previous activities and deplores the persistence of what he calls an “assault” against him and his family.

What brought down the now former prime minister was a scandal that erupted after the launch of an investigation against him for a preferential loan of 20,000 euros received from a credit company in which he holds shares. The loan was granted by the national development bank when Paluckas was already head of government. Lithuanian authorities are also investigating other suspicious financial activities linked to him. 

In addition, a journalistic investigation revealed a ten-year delay in the payment of a hefty EUR 16,500 fine for abuse of power, imposed on him in 2012 when he was working as an official at the capital’s city hall for having irregularly hired a pest control company. 

“I will wait for the conclusions of the investigations which, I have no doubt, will separate facts from insinuations,” Paluckas said. Only yesterday, he had announced his intention to submit his cabinet to a confidence vote in the Seimas, the single-chamber parliament in Vilnius, as suggested by the head of state. 

In the past few hours, Saulius Skvernelis, leader of the Democratic Union for Lithuania (DSVL) – the LSPD’s ally together with the Alba del Nemunas (PPNA) – as well as president of the House, threatened to withdraw his party from the coalition if Paluckas did not step aside. The tension between members of the majority grew in recent weeks due to the premier’s legal issues, and it now remains to be seen whether it will survive the government crisis.

The LSPD won the legislative elections in October, when it secured 52 seats out of the total 141 in the hemicycle, returning to power after seven years in opposition as the leading member of a center-left coalition with DSVL and PPNA. At the time, the party’s leader was MP Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, who then passed the baton to Paluckas two months ago. He will now pass the baton to Paluckas’s former number two and the mayor of the Jonava district, Mindaugas Sinkevičius. 

Even if the number of social-democratic leaders at the European Council does not change (President Nausėda is representing Vilnius), the exit of the Lithuanian Prime Minister is yet another significant blow for the Party of European Socialism (PES), in free fall throughout the Union (as made clear by the results of the latest European elections) and also put to the test in one of the few countries where it had managed to hold on in recent years, with the Spanish government of Pedro Sánchez hit by a series of scandals.