Dalia Grybauskaitė

Dalia Grybauskaitė (2014)

Dalia Grybauskaitė [ daˈlʲæ grʲiːbausˈkaitʲeː ] (born March 1, 1956 in Vilnius , Lithuanian SSR , Soviet Union ) is a Lithuanian politician. Until May 2009 she was Commissioner for Financial Planning and Budget of the European Union . In the elections on May 17, 2009 , she became the first woman to be elected President of Lithuania . On May 25, 2014, she was re-elected for another five years. On July 12, 2019, she handed over the office to Gitanas Nausėda .

Origin and family

Her father Polikarpas Grybauskas (* 1928 in the district of Kėdainiai ; † 2008), according to the pre-marital documents Gribauskas , was of Polish origin (from the side of his mother or grandmother). He worked as an electrician and driver. Dalia Grybauskaitė was the daughter of his second marriage to Vitalija Korsakaitė (* 1922 in Latveliai near Biržai ; † 1989 in Vilnius ), a saleswoman. Grybauskaitė's mother graduated from school and met Polikarpas in Vilnius. Both parents were buried in Vilnius. She also has a half-brother through her father Polikarpas . She is not married and has no children.

education and profession

Dalia Grybauskaitė graduated from Salomėja Nėris Middle School in Vilnius Old Town . and initially worked for a year in the " Kader Department" (about: Human Resources Department) of the Lithuanian National Philharmonic in Soviet Lithuania , before moving to the Red Front fur factory in Leningrad (today St. Petersburg), Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic , as a worker and laboratory assistant .

With the degree in Political Economy in evening study at the Leningrad State University Grybauskaitė 1983 joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in, returned to Lithuania and took over the management of the Cabinet of Agriculture at the Party School Vilnius . From 1985 to June 1990 (until the party school closed after the political upheaval in March 1990) Grybauskaitė taught political economy there. At the same time, she received her doctorate in 1988 as a candidate for sciences in economics at the Academy of Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the CPSU in Moscow . Your supervisor was Prof. Iwan Fjodorowitsch Suslow. Her dissertation was in Russian on "The interaction of public and private property in the functioning of Beisiedlungswirtschaft" (Russ. Взаимосвязь общественной и личной собственности в функционировании личного подсобного хозяйства customized).

After the social upheaval in Lithuania, she was commissioned as an employee of the Economic Institute of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in 1991 to draw up the economic program of the government of Lithuania . In the same year, she completed a special program for government officials at Georgetown University in Washington, DC

Political career

Grybauskaitė during the 53rd MSC 2017

After joining the conservative Lithuanian government in 1991, she soon became head of the European department in the Ministry of International Economic Relations . From 1993 to 1994 she worked as the head of the economic department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs . She became chief negotiator for the free trade agreement with the EU and was at the Lithuanian mission to the EU from 1994 to 1995. After the change of government, she was transferred to the Lithuanian Embassy in the United States in 1996 (until 1999) , until she became Deputy Minister of Finance (1999) and Deputy Secretary of State (2000) after the conservative-liberal parties were again elected. Her political ascent continued even after the end of the bourgeois coalition: in the new, social democratic government of Algirdas Brazauskas , she became finance minister in 2001 (until her appointment as EU commissioner on May 4, 2004).

EU commissioner

From May 1, 2004, she held the post of Education and Culture Commissioner together with Viviane Reding from Luxembourg . In the Barroso I Commission , which was in office from November 2004 to February 2010, she was responsible for finance and budget . However, she gave up this post after her election as President of Lithuania. Her successor was the previous Lithuanian finance minister, Algirdas Šemeta .

Lithuanian President

Grybauskaitė with Lech Kaczyński in August 2009

In February 2009, Dalia Grybauskaitė declared her candidacy for the office of President of Lithuania. This candidacy was widely expected and supported by many sides in Lithuanian society. Despite a decline in opinion polls shortly before the election, she was able to win the vote by a large margin and was elected as the successor to Valdas Adamkus in the office of President in the first ballot on May 17, 2009 with 68.2% of the votes . On July 12, 2009, she was solemnly inducted into office. In the 2014 presidential election in Lithuania , she prevailed in the runoff election against MEP Zigmantas Balčytis and began her second term on July 12, 2014. After two terms in office, she was not allowed to run again in the 2019 Lithuanian presidential election. Dalia Grybauskaitė remained by far the most popular politician in Lithuania until the last few months of her term in office . She has been referred to as "political titan ", " amber lady", " tulip " (because of her unofficial presidential office email address [email protected] ) or by the New York Times as "steel magnolia".