Lithuanian president gives no comment on Skvernelis-Paluckas "exchange of rhetoric"

  • 2017-04-25
  • BNS/TBT Staff

KARMELAVA – Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite has dismissed as "exchange of rhetoric" the public statements about coalition relations by the leaders of two leading parties, Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis and the newly-elected chairman of the Social Democratic Party Gintautas Paluckas.

"We see an exchange of rhetoric, and this is definitely not up to the president to comment upon," Grybauskaite told BNS in Karmelava on Tuesday.

Skvernelis, the head of the government, told the national radio LRT that he had no plans of meeting Paluckas anytime soon, urging him to return to reality about demands for the coalition.

Paluckas replied that the Social Democrats would no longer be "easy, accessible and obedient partners without priorities of their own" in the ruling coalition.