10 September
Colleagues, Members of the
Seimas,
Welcome back to your workplace
after the summer recess. Hopefully, you have had a good summers rest and are
about to begin a new session with fresh ideas and renewed vigour.
This is the third session of the
Seimas in its current legislative period. During this session, as well during
each session, there are many tasks that lie before us. We will need peace of
mind, genuine cooperation, and self-discipline in order to complete them.
According to political analysts,
the recession in Lithuania has already hit the bottom. The pace of recovery
will largely depend on us as legislators and on the quality of our work. Our
speed of response to the current needs to adopt legislative amendments,
liberalise the existing legislation, and adopt and amend new legislation will
largely affect the future of the countrys commerce, incoming investment,
social wellbeing, research, healthcare, and many other areas.
The key priorities for the coming
session are:
1. Consolidation of the national
financial system. The autumn session should deliberate on and adopt the law
approving the national and municipal budget indicators for 2010 and the
associated secondary legislation;
2. Review of the social insurance
and other social schemes in view of the national financial situation;
3. Deliberation on and adoption
of legislation designed to improve the state government, as the national
agencies including but not limited to the Weaponry Fund, the Department of
Physical Education and Sports, the Lithuanian Data Protection Inspectorate, the
State Gaming Control Commission, and the Department of Statistics will be
reshuffled. In addition, regulation of the public agencies and national
property management will need to be improved;
4. Adoption of legislation to
improve the business environment;
5. Deliberation on and adoption
of legislation eliminating the administrative division into counties and
transferring the county functions to other entities under public
administration;
I will leave my brief overview of
the key activities in the autumn session at that. Due to the reasons you are well aware of * I do not feel
empowered to detail the course of action of the Seimas. Ms Irena
Degutienė, Deputy Speaker of the Seimas, will complete the task;
Colleagues, I wish you strength
of mind, staying power, and perseverance. I hope that in future issues of
secondary nature will neither obstruct nor interrupt your work aimed at
completion of the tasks entrusted to you by the nation.
* On 15 September 2009, the Seimas will deliberate on the draft
decision regarding the dismission from office of Mr Arūnas Valinskas, Speaker
of the Seimas.
