VILNIUS, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Lithuania's ruling Farmers and Greens Union (LZVS) and newly created Lithuania's Social Democratic Labor party (LSDDP) are negotiating a new coalition agreement which should also lead to solving current problems within the government, Gediminas Kirkilas, chairman of LSDDP, said on Friday.
"We expect to sign it (the agreement) next week," Kirkilas said in an interview with a local website VZ.lt.
He did not reveal the details of the new agreement, noting that "until there is agreed all, nothing is agreed."
The current ruling coalition's agreement was signed after Lithuania's parliamentary election in November 2016. However, last autumn Lithuania's Social Democratic party (LSDP) decided to withdraw to the opposition due to tensions with the LVZS.
Social democrats who were against the decision left the party and established, at the beginning, a new parliamentary group and, last month, a new LSDDP party which initiated the renewal of the coalition agreement.
Following LSDP's retreat, the current government was working as a minority government.
According to Kirkilas, alongside with talks on a renewed coalition agreement the parties are expecting a "probable discussions and decisions as regards assigning a new minister of justice".
The office has been vacant for nearly two months as the candidate nominated by Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis was immediately rejected by the country's president Dalia Grybauskaite.
The former minister of justice Milda Vainiute resigned in March following an obscure audit process at the Prison Department controlled by the ministry.
Skvernelis and Grybauskaite are also at odds due to a controversial issue of the current minister of agriculture Bronius Markauskas.
According to media reports, it is believed that Markauskas' family was engaged in farming in Klaipeda District but was not paying land rental fees to some landowners.
It was reported that Markauskas' mother used the land plots without permission for roughly 5 years while the National Paying Agency paid the woman EU payments for farming on four land plots where land was cultivated without rental agreements.
Prime Minister Skvernelis stated earlier this week that the minister may remain in the post until the deeper investigation is finished. President Grybauskaite afterwards said that the prime minister was "not independent and could not adopt decisions individually".
