Vėgėlė to fund Brussels trip after parliament rejects request

Ignas Vėgėlė and Rimas Jonas Jankūnas will still travel to Brussels to meet Chinese representatives to the European Union, despite the Lithuanian parliament’s board rejecting their official travel request, LRT reported. Vėgėlė said on Wednesday that the lawmakers would pay for the trip themselves.

“Since we have made a commitment, that is what we will do, and we will have to travel at our own expense,” Vėgėlė told ELTA.

Vėgėlė said the parliament had established an official temporary group called “For normalising diplomatic relations with China to the level of European Union member states”. Its main goal, he said, was to contribute to the normalisation of diplomatic relations between Lithuania and China.

He argued that members of parliament do not need separate approval from the parliamentary board or their political groups to conduct parliamentary diplomacy. Vėgėlė also said the group’s objective was consistent with the current government’s programme, which calls for Lithuania’s diplomatic relations with China to be brought to the level of diplomatic representation maintained by other EU countries.

Vėgėlė described the board’s decision as political and said it reflected an unwillingness to address an issue included in the government programme. He compared the planned visit with previous trips by Lithuanian lawmakers to Taiwan, saying those visits had been financed with parliamentary funds and that he and Jankūnas would now have to “correct” their consequences using their personal money.

The parliamentary board rejected the travel request on Wednesday. During the discussion, conservative lawmaker Radvilė Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė asked whether the visit had been coordinated with the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, the Foreign Ministry and the government.

Parliament Speaker Juozas Olekas said the lawmakers could travel to Brussels, but would not do so as parliament-delegated representatives. The visit is planned for September 7 to 9.

The temporary group consists of Vėgėlė, Vitalijus Šeršniovas, Tadas Barauskas, Algirdas Butkevičius, Jankūnas, Karolis Neimantas and Artūras Zuokas.

Government programmes led by Gintautas Paluckas and Inga Ruginienė included plans to further develop economic and cultural ties with Taiwan. That provision was not included in the programme of the government led by Mindaugas Sinkevičius. The current government’s programme instead calls for diplomatic relations with China to be normalised to the level maintained by other EU states.

Relations between Vilnius and Beijing deteriorated sharply after Taiwan’s representative office opened in Lithuania in late 2021. China considers Taiwan a province that has no right to establish representative offices in countries with which China maintains official diplomatic relations. Beijing imposed diplomatic and economic sanctions on Lithuania over the decision.