
Egidijus Bičkauskas was born in Lithuania on 29 May 1955. He graduated from Vilnius High School No 7 in 1973 and from Vilnius State University with a degree in law in 1978. Having started out as an investigator with the Prosecutor’s Office of Vilnius City, from 1980 he specialised in very serious violent crime, corruption and bribery as an investigator of particularly important cases at the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic. The conscription into the Soviet army followed in 1984, with the service in the Far East of the Soviet Union lasting until 1986.
After his return to Lithuania, Bičkauskas continued his career at the Prosecutor General’s Office. Having joined the Lithuanian Reform Movement Sąjūdis, in 1989 he was elected to the Congress of People’s Deputies of the Soviet Union and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. In 1990, Bičkauskas was voted in as a Member of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania – Reconstituent Seimas, held membership of its Presidium, became a Signatory to the Act of Independence, and was appointed representative of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania in Moscow. Subsequently, from October 1991 to April 1993, he served as a chargé d’affaires ad interim of the Republic of Lithuania to the Soviet Union and Russia (with the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Lithuania awarded in 2000). In 1992–1996, Bičkauskas worked as Member of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, Deputy Speaker of the Seimas, and Member and Chairman of the Presidium of the Baltic Assembly (inter-parliamentary organisation for cooperation between Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia). From 1996, he chaired the Centre Union Political Group at the Seimas and co- led the Centre Union political party of the liberal wing.
In 2000, Bičkauskas withdrew from active political life to focus on his duties at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Lithuania.
Since 2004, he has been engaged as a lawyer specialising in criminal law.
Bičkauskas is Secretary General of the Club of Signatories to the Act of Independence of Lithuania, author of a host of articles on political and legal matters, and frequent participant in various conferences.
Bičkauskas is married; his wife is a philologist and heads a department at the National Library.