During the spring session of 2021, half of the parliamentarians (70) announced 654 meetings with interest groups and registered lobbyists. Four years ago, in spring 2017, 45 MPs reported 475 such meetings. This was shown in a review of MPs agendas by Transparency International Lithuania, the data of which is available on the website www.manoseimas.lt.
Since March 2021, most meetings were declared by Justas Džiugelis, a member of the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats political group (38), Simonas Gentvilas, a member of the Liberals’ Movement political group (34), Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, the Speaker of the Seimas (32), Ingrida Šimonytė, a member of the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats political group (32), and Aušrinė Armonaitė, a member of the Freedom Party political group (30).
The most active political group was the Freedom Party political group. This was the first time that all members (11 out of 11) from one political group declared at least one meeting with representatives of interest groups during a session, a total of 149 such meetings.
10 out of 12 members of the Liberal Movement political group published 84 meetings, 2 out of 4 members of the Non-attached group – 17 meetings, 5 out of 10 members of the Labour Party political group – 13 meetings. 6 out of 13 members of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party political group declared 45 meetings, 23 out of 50 members of the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats political group – 256 meetings, 11 out of 32 members of the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union political group – 55 meetings with representatives of interest groups and registered lobbyists. 1 out of 9 members of the Lithuanian Regions political group announced 3 meetings.
The ruling coalition announced four times more meetings (489 meetings) than the opposition – 116 meetings.
Meetings with interest groups were declared by 5 out of 8 political group chairpersons as well as by 7 out of 16 committees’ chairpersons.
Most meetings were held with business representatives and business associations (199). Every fourth meeting (172 out of 654) was with NGOs and other non-profit organizations.
Information for this review was obtained from the MP‘s official working calendars, personal websites and entries of meetings with interest groups made on the website manosusitikimai.lt. Meetings were gathered from March 10th, 2021, until August 16th, 2021.
A short summary of the findings can be found here. More detailed information and overviews of previous sessions at www.manoseimas.lt.
More information: Ieva Dunčikaitė, iduncikaite@transparency.lt, +370 5 212 69 51.