The candidates are selected by leading European opinion leaders and the readers can decide, which one of them should get the title. There are a few categories of nominations: Commissioner of the Year, MEP of the Year, Statesman / Stateswoman of the Year, Diplomat of the Year, Journalist of the Year, Campaigner of the Year, Business Leader of the Year, Achiever of the Year and Non-EU Citizen of the Year. Then ten of the fifty candidates are selected (according to the number of votes received). The European of the Year is chosen from those ten candidates.

The Lithuanian President was nominated in the category of Statesman/Stateswoman of the Year for helping to broker a deal on the new EU treaty so as not to isolate Poland.

Nobody except diplomats really know what happened during the negotiations, but the President of Poland Lech Kaczynski said something interesting happened during the opening ceremony of the new embassy of Poland in Lithuania. He stated, that after these negotiations, when any of the EU leaders want to make a deal with him, the first call they make is not to him (Lech Kaczynski), but to the President of Lithuania.

Indrė Kumpikevičiūtė

Photos of Presidency of Lithuania