The Social Democratic Party of Lithuania is a centre-left and social democratic political party in Lithuania. Founded as an underground Marxist organisation in 1896,it is the oldest extant party in Lithuania. During the time of the Soviet Union,the party went into exile,emerging once again after the end of communist rule in 1989.
Vytautas Landsbergis is a Lithuanian politician and former Member of the European Parliament. He was the first Speaker of Reconstituent Seimas of Lithuania after its independence declaration from the Soviet Union. He has written 20 books on a variety of topics,including a biography of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis,as well as works on politics and music. He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration,and a member of the international advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
Dagmar Roth-Behrendt is a German lawyer who served as Member of the European Parliament. She was elected on the SPD ticket and sat with the Party of European Socialists group.
Vincas Mickevičius,known under his pen name Kapsukas,was a Lithuanian communist political activist,publicist and revolutionary.
Aloyzas Sakalas was a Lithuanian politician,signatory of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania,and Member of the European Parliament with the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania. Aloyzas Sakalas was also a part of the Socialist Group and sat on the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs.
Laima Liucija Andrikienė is a Lithuanian politician serving as member of the European Court of Auditors since November 2022.
Antanas Guoga,more commonly known as Tony G,is a Lithuanian-Australian businessman,poker player,politician and philanthropist. In November 2020,Antanas was elected to the 2020–2024 legislative period of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania in the Labour Party group.
Lithuania does not recognise same-sex marriages or civil unions. A bill to grant same-sex couples some limited legal rights and benefits is pending in the Seimas.
Andrius Kubilius is a Lithuanian politician who has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2019. He served as Prime Minister of Lithuania from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. He was the leader of the conservative political party Homeland Union.
Leonidas Donskis was a Lithuanian-Jewish philosopher,political theorist,historian of ideas,social analyst,and political commentator,professor of politics and head of "VDU Academia Cum Laude" at Vytautas Magnus University,Honorary Consul of Finland in Kaunas and deputy chairman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. He was also the member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2014.
Emanuelis Zingeris is a Lithuanian philologist,museum director,politician,signatory of the 1990 Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania,currently serving as a Member of the Seimas,chairman of its foreign affairs committee,Vice President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and President of the Parliamentary Forum of the Community of Democracies. A Lithuanian Jew,he has been director of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum,honorary chairman of Lithuania's Jewish community,and is Chairman of the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania. He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism,that proposed the establishment of the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism.
Algirdas Butkevičius is a Lithuanian politician and was Prime Minister of Lithuania,serving between 2012 and 2016. He also served as the Minister of Finance from 2004 to 2005 and the Minister of Transport and Communications from 2006 to 2008. He led the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania from 2009 to 2017.
The Seventy Years Declaration was a declaration initiated by the American academic Dovid Katz and the Australian academic Danny Ben-Moshe,and released on 20 January 2012 to protest the policies of several European states and European Union bodies concerning the evaluation,remembrance and prosecution of crimes committed by communist dictatorships in Europe,specifically policies of many European countries and the EU treating the Nazi and Stalinist regimes in Eastern and Central Europe as equally criminal. Presented as a response to the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism initiated by the Czech government in 2008 to condemn communism as totalitarian and criminal,it explicitly rejects the idea that the regimes of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler are morally equivalent,i.e. the totalitarianism theory that was popularized by academics such as Hannah Arendt,Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski and became dominant in Western political discourse during the Cold War,and that gained new popularity in many new EU member states after the end of communism,resulting in international resolutions,establishment of research institutes and museums,and the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism. The declaration also states that communist regimes did not commit genocides,citing the 1948 Genocide Convention which restricts genocide to mass killings related to ethnicity,race,nationality,or religion. The declaration claims that the Holocaust was unique,a subject of some debate. The declaration was signed by 70,mostly leftist,parliamentarians from Europe. It was released on the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin.
The Juncker Commission was the European Commission in office from 1 November 2014 to 30 November 2019. Its president was Jean-Claude Juncker,who presided over 27 other commissioners. In July 2014,Juncker was officially elected to succeed JoséManuel Barroso,who completed his second five-year term in that year.
Petras Auštrevičius is a Lithuanian liberal politician,diplomat,civil society activist,former member of Seimas,and since 2014,a member of the European Parliament.
Saulius Skvernelis is a Lithuanian politician who served as prime minister of Lithuania between 2016 and 2020. He had previously served as police commissioner,and was Minister of the Interior from 2014 to 2016. Though he was an independent politician,he was backed by the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union and was a member of its parliamentary group until 2022,as a result of which he became the first head of government in European history primarily backed by a green party.
Presidential elections were held in Lithuania on 12 May 2019,with a second round held on 26 May 2019. Due to a constitutional limit of two terms in office,incumbent president Dalia Grybauskaitėwas unable to run,having won the 2009 and 2014 elections.
Virginijus Sinkevičius is a Lithuanian politician who was serving as European Commissioner for the Environment,Oceans and Fisheries in the European Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen from 2019 to 2024. In the 2024 European elections he was elected and became a member of the European Parliament. He previously was a Member of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and Minister of the Economy and Innovation of the Republic of Lithuania.
Pranas Eidukevičius was a Lithuanian socialist activist and communist revolutionary. He was a member of the central committee of the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania in 1906–1918 and chairman of the short-lived Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia (1918) and Vilna Soviet of Workers Deputies (1918–1919).
The 2021 Social Democratic Party of Lithuania leadership election took place on 3–9 May 2021 to elect the chairperson of the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania. It was the third direct leadership election in the party's history.
