I would think that every minister should feel the political situation so well as never to receive an official suggestion from the head of state to leave his post. „I am not clinging to my chair, so if my resignation would solve the problems, I will immediately sign an application to resign,” -this standard sentence is repeated by everybody. Also we all see how much the words differ from the deeds. A phrase “I would like to check how much confidence is placed on me” is still absent in Lithuanian political vocabulary.

A Minister of Foreign Affairs who did not manage to check how much confidence he enjoys, did a mistake that makes us to entertain doubts about his diplomatic wit. Even though this might be only a coincidence, however, this kind of mistakes are not justifiable for a former negotiator for EU membership, Lithuanian ambassador in Washington and London, one of the most professional our diplomats.

It is also hard to understand how Vygaudas Ušackas understood one of the most important problems that are rooted in Lithuanian diplomatic service that is under his leadership. While having a look from aside, it is hard to get a rid from an impression that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was too much close with the State Security Department, and this impression was even more sustained by a free migration between these two services. Links between these two institutions are natural as well as cooperation between them.

However, these links have to be based not on a subjection of one of these services to another but on healthy competition between them. As we can see from a tragic story of Col.Vytautas Pociūnas or from a shameful story of the adviser of the minister Dainius Dabašinskas, there was no balance between the Ministry and the Department. After choosing the side of the faction and not the state interests in the case of CIA prisons, Vygaudas Ušackas showed that he will not manage to regulate the relationships with the State Security Department.

The publicly announced President’s idea to invite the President of the Federation of Russia to the celebration of March the 11th was the last proof for the Minister. Vygaudas Ušackas who is skilfully griping in the channels of mass media showed that he is not inclined to use these skills as well as the cultivation made by the Ministry in the public sphere for the sake of the state.

Dalia Grybauskaitė has explicitly said that the invitation for the Russian Head of state to join the celebrations of the anniversary of Lithuania’s independence is a diplomatic manoeuvre. Taking into account Kremlin’s answer to our invitation, the President will decide if to take part in the celebrations of the Day of Victory in Moscow on the 9th of May. During twenty years it is one of the most elegant steps in Lithuanian foreign policy. Especially if one remembers what kind of controversy was caused, when, the at that time President Valdas Adamkus encouraged the society to take into consideration a question if the President should go to Moscow or not. This discussion divided the Lithuanian society, poisoned our public sphere and opened a way for Kremlin to blackmail us for several years.

Now Lithuania took over the diplomatic initiative in the relations with Moscow, and this can be considered as no mean achievement for a small state. However, reasoned doubts have arisen if our contemporary diplomatic service will be willing and able to profit from the opened opportunities and if it will understand what kind of changes it is indeed pursued in the foreign policy. The invitation by the President Dalia Grybauskaitė for the President of the Russian Federation not only shows a turn to the East, but also an aim to bring back dignity and efficiency into our foreign policy.

The talented diplomat Vygaudas Ušackas was a creditable Minister of Foreign Affairs. It’s enough to remember the quiet way in which he solved the situation with the Lithuanian sailors kidnapped aside the shores of Africa last summer. The solution of the conflict with Russia on the question of transporters also did not disappoint. It is the media who ruined the Minister. Last April Vygaudas Ušackas simply withstood seemingly unfounded accusations, made by the media due to poor management of the Lithuanian Embassy in London and depletions that were purportedly made there. At that time the critics were put to silence by audit, ordered by the minister. However, the adulation that afterwards started in the media was disastrous.

Not long ago Dalia Grybauskaitė explained, in a nice way, how opinions expressed in the public sphere influence her (I am quoting): „Since I know where, who, for what and who is writing, I check if my decisions are right. In case I clamp on some interest or don’t let to make a good thing for somebody, I immediately see a reaction in one or another media. In this way I can check if my steps are right”.

Finally, it should be reminded that the light spreads in an incredible speed – three hundred thousand kilometres per second. Still, however quick the light is travelling, it is always preceded by darkness.

Gintaras Aleknonis, commentator and host of Public Radio programmes, and Lecture of the Mykolas Romeris University, former employee of the Radio Liberty.  The article was published on Lrt.lt