Budrys says lawmakers may talk to Beijing but cannot negotiate
Thursday 10th September 2026 on 12:00 in
Lithuania
Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said on Thursday that Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry does not prohibit politicians from speaking with Chinese diplomats, but only the ministry is authorised to conduct negotiations with Beijing, LRT reported.
“Talks are taking place with another country with which we have had diplomatic relations for more than 30 years, but with which we do not have functioning diplomatic representation,” Budrys told a question-and-answer session in the Seimas, Lithuania’s parliament.
“No one else in the government is required to conduct negotiations or any other talks. But speaking somewhere as citizens of the Republic of Lithuania is not something the Foreign Ministry will restrict,” he said.
Budrys was referring to a meeting earlier this week in Brussels between Seimas members Ignas Vėgėlė and Rimas Jonas Jankūnas and Chinese diplomats. The politicians said they had opened a path to dialogue between Vilnius and Beijing that could help resolve problems in bilateral relations.
They said they would not disclose the content of the meeting but would pass it to senior Lithuanian officials responsible for foreign policy so that negotiations with China could move forward.
Vėgėlė and Jankūnas belong to a temporary parliamentary group seeking to normalise diplomatic relations with China to the level maintained by other European Union member states.
Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius has previously said that not all parliamentary initiatives necessarily help Vilnius restore relations with Beijing. The Presidential Office said on Tuesday that Seimas members meeting Chinese representatives did not represent Lithuania’s position.
The governing parties have made normalising relations with China to the level of diplomatic representation maintained by other EU countries a government programme goal, but it has so far produced no practical results. Bilateral relations deteriorated in 2021 after Lithuania allowed Taiwan to open a representative office in the country.