"The first thing I would like to pay attention to is Algirdas Butkevičius' statement that one party cannot be in charge of two ministries – Transport and Agriculture – as they receive the lion's share of the European money," Kubilius told the Lithuanian Radio on Tuesday.
"In other words, the issue of distribution of ministries among the coalition partners is being solved not based on the agenda but on the amount of money. So we should probably call it a distributional coalition where the main issue in these talks is who can get access to European money and to what extent," the prime minister said.
Butkevičius said earlier that major discussions with the Labor Party, one of the potential coalition partners, centered around the Ministries of Agriculture and Transport-Communications.
"A major discussion between the Social Democratic Party and the Labor Party centers around the Ministries of Transport and Communication and Agriculture as some people wanted them to belong to one party, and our party's positions is that they cannot belong to one political power as these (ministries) administer big EU money and the other thing is that these are large sectors," Butkevičius said in an interview on Sunday.
The Social Democratic Party of Lithuania, the Labor Party, and the Order and Justice Party agreed on the distribution of ministries in the future government late on Monday.
The Social Democratic Party of Lithuania will nominate a candidate for prime minister and get seven ministries: Finance, Transport and Communications, Economy, National Defense, Health, Foreign Affairs, and Justice.
The Labor Party will control five ministries: Agriculture, the Interior, Education and Science, Social Security and Labor, and Culture.
The Order and Justice Party will take over the Ministries of Environment and Energy.
Shocking to give Interior Ministry to Labor
The decision to give the Ministry of the Interior to the Labor Party is a shocking thing, the outgoing Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said on Tuesday.
He also expressed concern over the decision to give the Ministry of Energy to the Order and Justice Party.
"The shocking fact is the participation of the Labor Party in the coalition, not to mention giving the Ministry of the Interior to the Labor Party," Kubilius said in an interview to the Lithuanian Radio on Tuesday.
The prime minister believes the Labor Party shouldn’t even be in power. He said he backs President Dalia Grybauskaitė, who has recently spoken against the Labor Party's participation in a ruling coalition as the party's two leaders are the defendants in a criminal fraud case.
"In my opinion, the Labor Party cannot be in power and I totally agree with the president on that. It’s not some legal issue, it’s an issue of values, and the president said that as well. Unfortunately, it's deplorable that the Social Democrats responded to the president's statement by saying that they share the Labor Party's values, i.e., honesty and fraudulent bookkeeping, if we can call them values," Kubilius said.
"So I don’t know how to call it when a party being prosecuted for fraudulent bookkeeping is made in charge of the main ministry taking care of law enforcement, i.e., the Ministry of the Interior. It's really a shocking thing," the prime minister said.
Kubilius is also concerned about the fact that the Order and Justice Party which, the premier says, is catering to Russia's interests, will be in charge of the Ministry of Energy.
"I am also concerned about energy issues. Over a recent period, the Order and Justice Party has not disguised its goals in the energy sector, first of all, to take care, I dare to say, of interests of our neighbor Russia. We just have to reminisce that, last summer, Rosatom's representative Boyarkin visited Lithuania at one of the party's leaders' invitation and he had the chance to take part in propaganda against Visaginas nuclear power plant," Kubilius said.
