During the spring 2019 Parliamentary session, the number of Lithuanian MPs who declared their meetings with interest groups and lobbyists decreased by a quarter. Additionally, 207 fewer meetings were published overall, in comparison to the autumn 2018 session. These figures are reported in research conducted by Transparency International Lithuania, which includes information from manosusitikimai.lt, official work calendars, and personal websites of the parliamentarians.
In the spring of 2019, 63 out of 146 MPs declared 530 meetings. By contrast, in autumn 2018, 82 out of 141 MPs declared 737 meetings.
Despite an overall decrease in the number of meetings declared, the Non-attached Members is the only political group that increased its number of declared meetings. This spring, its members announced 67 meetings, up from 44 last autumn.
The greatest number of meetings declared during the spring 2019 session were by Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union political groups member Virginija Vingrienė (47), Minister of the Economy and Innovation, Virginijus Sinkevičius (33), the Chairwoman of the Liberals Movement party, Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen (30), Non-attached Members political groups member Aušrinė Armonaitė (29), and the Minister of the Environment, Kęstutis Mažeika (28).
The most active political group was the Liberals Movement party. 9 out of its 12 members declared a combined total of 67 meetings. 34 out of 51 members of the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union political group announced 325 meetings.
Six members of Non-attached Members political group published 67 meetings with interest groups and registered lobbyists. Three members of Lithuanian Social Democratic Party political group declared 10 meetings, seven members of Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrat Political Group – 29 meetings, two members of Lithuanian Social Democratic Labour Political Group announced 9 meetings. One member of the “Order and Justice” Political Group (Sovereign Lithuania) political group published 1 meeting.
No meetings with interest groups were announced by Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania-Christian Families Alliance political group members.
The largest number of meetings were held with business associations and businesspeople (179), NGOs (152), and education and science representatives (83). Meetings with registered lobbyists (7) were announced by only 5 MPs.
Spring session 2019 is the first session during which all Lithuanian MPs published their agendas.
For research purposes, only publicly available information between March 10th, 2019 and August 16th, 2019 was used. Information was sourced from official working calendars, personal websites, and entries made on manosusitikimai.lt about meetings with interest groups.
Due to the turnover of MPs during the session, 146 instead of 141 parliamentarians were included in the study.
A short summary can be found here (in English), and more information about the study can be found here (in Lithuanian).
For more information:
Sergejus Muravjovas, info@transparency.lt, 868997579