Linas Antanas Linkevičius (born 6 January 1961) is a

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

n diplomat who has formerly served in the cabinet as

Minister of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and foreign relations, relations, diplomacy, bilateralism, ...

and Minister of National Defence. He is currently Lithuania's Ambassador to Sweden.

Early life

He was born into an engineer and teacher family. His childhood and school years were spent in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

. In 1978, he graduated from the Kaunas 7th Secondary School with a gold medal. From 1978 to 1983, he studied at the Faculty of Automation of Kaunas Polytechnic Institute, graduating with an electrical engineering degree. During the rest of the 80s, he served as secretary of the local

Lithuanian Komsomol The Leninist Young Communist League of Lithuania ( or LLKJS) or Lithuanian Komsomol () was the Lithuania, Lithuanian branch of the Soviet Union, Soviet Komsomol that served as the youth organ of the Communist Party of Lithuania. The organization w ...

district in Panemunė.

Political career

Linkevičius served as minister of National Defence from 1993 to 1996 and from 2000 to 2004. He was the Lithuanian Permanent Representative to

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

from 2005 until 2011.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2012–2020

In December 2012 Linkevičius was appointed

. Throughout his term as foreign minister, Linkevičius has corroborated Lithuania's status within many international and multilateral entities and organizations, including the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

, NATO and the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

. He managed to establish strong personal ties with prominent international leaders like

Laurent Fabius Laurent Fabius (; born 20 August 1946) is a French politician. A member of the Socialist Party (France), Socialist Party, he previously served as Prime Minister of France from 17 July 1984 to 20 March 1986. Fabius was 37 years old when he was a ...

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office. She was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and Leade ...

and

Shimon Peres Shimon Peres ( ; ; born Szymon Perski, ; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician and statesman who served as the prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the president of Israel from 2007 t ...

, whom he invited to be an advisor to the project of the Jewish Memorial Center in Vilnius, on the site of the Great Synagogue of Vilna. He is known to be a partisan of international collaboration in fields like science, sport and the arts, in order to strengthen the image of Lithuania and to enhance its global standpoint. In 2015, Linkevičius visited

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

and met with the King

Salman of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (; born 31 December 1935) has been King of Saudi Arabia since 2015, and was Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia from 2015 to 2022. He is the 25th son of King Abdulaziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia. He assumed the thron ...

. He said back then "I think that after this visit our relations will become much more systematic." Linkevičius expressed deep concern over the escalation of hostilities in the disputed region of

Nagorno-Karabakh Nagorno-Karabakh (, ; ) is a region in Azerbaijan, covering the southeastern stretch of the Lesser Caucasus mountain range. Part of the greater region of Karabakh, it spans the area between Lower Karabakh and Syunik Province, Syunik. Its ter ...

and called on

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

and

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

to immediately halt fighting and progress towards a peaceful resolution. On 9 March 2018, after Poland's referral to the

European Court of Justice The European Court of Justice (ECJ), officially the Court of Justice (), is the supreme court of the European Union in matters of European Union law. As a part of the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is tasked with interpreting ...

, leaders of

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

and

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

expressed their support for Poland over the Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union. On 13 September 2018, Linkevičius has re-confirmed Lithuania's stand: "We will oppose the sanctions against Poland. This dialogue is very complicated but we believe that the result will be positive."

Ambassador to Sweden, 2024-present

On 19 December 2023, President Gitanas Nausėda signed a decree on his appointment as ambassador to Sweden. He took up his duties on January 15.

Political positions

Linkevičius has been a constant opponent within the

and

of compromises with Russia over

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. When measures to re-engage Russia were discussed in Brussels, in January 2015, he strongly objected. "I do not think we should think how to re-engage; Russia should think how to re-engage . . . I see no reason why we should invent something," he was quoted. "We can't trust a single word of the Russian leadership. ussia'sstatements are worthless," he was quoted as saying in a public speech in March 2015, scolding some of his European Union colleagues for being detached from "reality" in seeking to soften or unroll some of the sanctions against Russia. In a newspaper column, in June 2015, Linkevičius warned Lithuania's NATO partners against regression to a mid-

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

-like

détente ''Détente'' ( , ; for, fr, , relaxation, paren=left, ) is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The diplomacy term originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsucces ...

with

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, as the one experienced in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Russia, he wrote, no longer poses "a serious alternative to Western

liberal democracy Liberal democracy, also called Western-style democracy, or substantive democracy, is a form of government that combines the organization of a democracy with ideas of liberalism, liberal political philosophy. Common elements within a liberal dem ...

", and its adversarial relations with the rest of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

are "just a

Kremlin The Moscow Kremlin (also the Kremlin) is a fortified complex in Moscow, Russia. Located in the centre of the country's capital city, the Moscow Kremlin (fortification), Kremlin comprises five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Mosco ...

construct, invented by modern Russia to cover failures of reform." Referring to Lithuania as a "frontline state" with Russia, he urged in that column that "NATO’s capabilities should be based on sober threat analyses, not illusions. Anything that the Kremlin perceives as weakness will encourage it to press ahead."

Memberships

* Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), Member of the International Leadership Council (since 2022) *

European Council on Foreign Relations The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) is a pan-European think tank with offices in seven European capitals. Launched in October 2007, it conducts research on European foreign and security policy and provides a meeting space for decis ...

(ECFR), Member

Awards

* Commander of the Order of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas (February 3, 2003) * Commander of the Order of the Cross of Vytis (March 30, 2004) * Grand Commander's Cross of the Order of Vytautas the Great (2015) * Order of Three Stars, 3rd class (

, March 12, 2001) *

Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana The Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana (, also the Order of the Cross of St. Mary's Land) was instituted by the President of Estonia, Lennart Meri, on 16 May 1995 to honour the independence of the Estonian state. (The Latin name ''Terra Mariana'' ...

(Estonia, February 2, 2005) * Presidential Order of Excellence (Georgia, 2011) * Order of Honor (Moldova, 2014) * Grand Cross of the Order of the Polar Star (2015, Sweden) * Commander of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (2019, Poland) * Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (2019, Italy) * In March 2021, the Center for Belarusian Solidarity awarded Linkevičius the ''Global

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

ian Solidarity Award'' in the category "Melted Ice".

Personal life

In addition to Lithuanian, he knows English, Russian and Polish. He is married with two daughters.

References

External links

Short biography
, - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Linkevicius, Linas 1961 births Living people Members of the Seimas Ministers of defence of Lithuania Ministers of foreign affairs of Lithuania Journalists from Vilnius Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 2nd Class Democratic Labour Party of Lithuania politicians Social Democratic Party of Lithuania politicians 21st-century Lithuanian politicians Permanent representatives of Lithuania to NATO Ambassadors of Lithuania to Sweden