17 November marks a year since the first meeting of the 10th legislature of the Seimas. On this occasion, Ms Irena Degutienë, Speaker of the Seimas, made an overview of the results achieved by the Seimas during the past year and defined the priorities to guide her further activity as Speaker of the Seimas:
“Colleagues,
Members of the Seimas,
Congratulations on the first anniversary of the current legislature of the Seimas!
At the outset, I want to thank you for your joint efforts and endeavours to honestly execute the obligations conferred upon you by your electorate. It has been a tough year, with some serious struggle and some quarrels, while smiles were scarce. I am looking forward to a more consistent, efficient, inspirational, and reassuring approach to parliamentary work at the Seimas in future.
A year ago, subject to Presidential Decree we were summoned for the first meeting during the current legislative period as representatives of the people of Lithuania. I emphasise, we were summoned. The sole reason for your being at the Seimas is the mandate given by the people of Lithuania to represent them.
Therefore, apart from making a profound overview of the first year of the current Seimas legislature, I will name some of the key principles and priorities of my tenure. I hope for your support and backing resulting in joint efforts for the benefit of the state as a whole.
The Seimas started off a year ago under dire conditions of the global economic crisis. In view of the situation at hand, the Seimas had to strike the right balance in the state budget in order to meet the key funding needs and stabilise the tax system. This called for a number of complex and unpopular decisions on raising the taxes. The Seimas twice revised the budget, the core financial document of the year. Subject to decrease in state budget revenue, expenditure was slashed. We have applied cuts to our expenditure and our salaries as well. Equally, we have reduced the wage and salary rates used for the calculation of salaries of the national politicians, public officers, justices, and senior public officers.
This year, the Seimas has adopted an important Law on Higher Education that had faced a lengthy discussion and debate on the eve of its adoption. The Law has transformed the state regulation over research and higher education to meet the key quality requirements. Obviously, we faced criticism where criticism was due. In view of that, amendments to the new law are urgently needed, but at least we have moved on from a standstill.
The people in Lithuania particularly suffer from the alarming rates of corruption. Therefore, we have renewed the National Anti-Corruption Programme, set new priorities and tasks for combating corruption, and envisaged specific measures intended to reach the objectives. I equally want to highlight the decision to move to a new model of administration. Since mid-2010, county heads, their deputies, and county administrations will be abolished.
For a number of years now, complaints about excessive gas fees abounded claiming that the gas prices for inhabitants failed to decrease subject to reduction in the market price of gas. Therefore, the parliament has adopted a provision requiring the gas companies to reset tariffs for municipal customers every 6 months, thus ensuring flexibility in pricing and swift reaction to changes in the market. In an effort to ensure long-term public support, the Seimas has reviewed the conditions that have to be met by applicants for public support, the ways of providing support as well as rules governing the accumulation of funds for renovation of the multi-storey housing stock.
In an endeavour to mitigate the impact of the economic crisis on growing unemployment rates, the Seimas has adopted amendments to the Law on Support for Employment that will expand the scope of and eligibility for public works and increase additional means of funding.
These are by far not all the tasks performed by the Seimas during the past year, yet these measures are particularly important to Lithuania’s inhabitants. I believe that these attainments deserve more visibility so we should emphasise them to our electorate.
Apart from achievements, the past year has offered a number of challenges. The very first meeting of the current legislature that lasted till 3 a.m. in the morning has unfortunately come to symbolise the bad fate of the decision adopted at the meeting and a number of other decisions that needed to be amended immediately after their adoption. The stone-throwing attack on the Seimas windows last winter, the rent of luxury cars, and the misplaced use of expenditure intended for parliamentary activities as well as the inadmissibly protracted debate on the cuts to this expenditure attest to our failure to sufficiently engage with the electorate and feel their moods and realities. The situation has also demonstrated that we sometimes lack humility and self-criticism as representatives of the Lithuanian nation.
Twenty years ago, the Supreme Council was the genuine representative of the nation. Citizens defending it were ready to sacrifice their lives and shed their blood for it. Currently, we have to sadly admit the existence of an increasing gap between the Seimas and the people, resulting from a lack of trust and mutual understanding.
Something must have gone awfully wrong, if people turn to the Seimas with stones in their hands instead of proposals and if they regard the parliament as a battlefield or a suitable place for exchanging insults. I do realise that there are substantial differences between members of the Seimas, because the people who elected us are also diverse. Even so, I still believe that surmounting our differences and arriving at mutual understanding on a daily basis is a must. Therefore, I urge both the position and the opposition to be more active with promoting their ideas and more levelheaded in seeking mutual agreement.
Colleagues,
Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the re-established independence of Lithuania. The independence is a cornerstone of our common national and social life. Time and again, we are reminded that it was here, in the Seimas, that the Declaration of Independence was declared, the foundations of the independent state were laid, and the key provisions governing public life in the free Lithuanian state were established.
“The State of Lithuania shall be created by the Nation. Sovereignty shall belong to the Nation which will implement it through its representatives, 141 Members of the Seimas democratically elected by direct suffrage.” These are not abstractions. These are the words of the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania announced in this very hall and endorsed by the entire population of Lithuania through a public referendum.
Therefore, my key aim will be to ensure ousting the unnecessary quarrels and meaningless shows from the Seimas premises. The Seimas has to be the place for competition of ideas allowing for adoption of the most beneficial decisions for the country.
It is crucial to re-establish close ties between the Seimas and the citizens. I recall that ever since the Lithuanian National Revival, there has been an idea to establish an abode for the nation, but there was no place for it in Lithuania. I am confident that the Seimas can become one and thus regain national trust.
On the other hand, the Seimas also needs to make progress in terms of the national mandate and accountability conferred on MPs by the nation and the Constitution. Only then will the people see their constitutional rights and mandate implemented. Within the past decade, I have to admit, the parliament has become a body under the Government, rather than being an independent representative of the nation.
In the past years, we have forgotten the constitutional provision that apart from approving the Prime Minister and endorsing the Government Programme, the Seimas also has to scrutinize the actions of the Government. We have overlooked that apart from endorsing the budget elaborated by the Government, the Seimas also has a role in controlling its implementation. Unfortunately, the Constitutional provision for parliamentary scrutiny of Government actions now boils down to an unimportant Government hour, a meeting that usually takes place in a nearly empty hall and frequently bores members of the Seimas to death.
The disconcerting events in Kaunas have served as a poignant reminder of the unduly forgotten Constitutional obligation to scrutinize activities of the public officers and institutions accountable to the Seimas.
Therefore, I believe that as members of the Seimas we have to shoulder the bulk of responsibility for those tragic events and for the misconduct of the institutions accountable to the parliament. Unfortunately, we have so far been too lenient endorsing the annual reports of the Procurator’s Office, Children’s Rights Ombudsman, and other bodies.
We share the brunt of responsibility for the sluggish combat with corruption and shadow economy. There is an Anticorruption Commission at the Seimas, yet its activity is often too slow and fails to bring about tangible results the people expect.
The resuscitation of parliamentary scrutiny and accountability to the Seimas as well as greater accountability in our parliament and civil society is another important objective I will pursue during my tenure. I firmly believe that this is the only way we can gain public trust as well as public belief in the state, good initiatives, and change.
Members of the Seimas,
Our actions have to be guided by the principles of publicity, transparency, democracy, and justice. Parliamentary decision-making process should be fair and based on good conscience, rather than pressure-driven. I urge you to recall the fundamental law of the state, the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, which says, “Newly-elected Seimas members shall acquire all the rights of People's representatives only after swearing in the Seimas to be loyal to the Republic of Lithuania. (…) In office, Seimas members shall act in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, the interests of the State, as well as their own consciences, and may not be restricted by any mandates.” Far from being based on money and lobby interests, democratic parliamentary policy lies on the foundation of solid arguments and the ultimate truth.
So far, the assessment of the quality of operation of the Seimas and individual MPs has been based on irrelevant criteria, such as the quantity of adopted legislation and submitted drafts as well as the number of interventions, be it highly unconstructive ones, at the Plenary Sessions Hall. For this reason, I will not provide you with statistical data on the latter.
The Seimas is not a factory for producing legislation. The assessment of its performance cannot be put on a par with the calculation of the number of goods produced by the assembly line. We are no sportsmen either, and therefore working in the parliament is not about securing the fastest run or the greatest number of points.
I am convinced that the upcoming 20th anniversary of our Independence has to bring about a change in the traditional approach to assessment of the operation of Seimas. As an alternative, we should assess our effectiveness by responding to the questions of whether our decisions have led to more justice and better quality of life in Lithuania.
I tend to think that a more active engagement of the civil society into the process of drafting legislation represents a step towards improving the effectiveness of the Seimas. The committee meetings that give an opportunity to speak out to all social groups should be key for the elaboration of laws.
I welcome the return of the social partners into the Seimas. Employers and trade unions now have their permanent in-house representatives in the parliament. The latter will be able to take an active part in committee and commission meetings and express their opinion on legislative drafts.
I therefore encourage the chairmen of the Seimas committees to spare no effort in actively organising public hearings where the voice of the citizens should be heard.
The laws on budget and accompanying legislation on taxes adopted in haste last year and amended in mid-year are clearly the most obvious errors committed by our parliament. It is true that the Seimas elections in autumn were to blame for the haste. The elections also paved the way to essential amendments to the draft budget submitted to the Seimas by the previous Government. As I have already mentioned, it is crucial to learn from the mistakes and never repeat them again. Therefore, I propose we start a serious debate on amendments to the Constitution so that a new date for Seimas elections could be established.
Even before we legislate on the new date of elections, and even before essential change is in place, we need a constructive agreement on budget this year. It should not be forgotten that the Constitution clearly sets out that the elaboration and adoption of the state budget is a joint task involving three fundamental public bodies: the Government, the Seimas, and the President. Therefore, next year we will ask the Government to provide the Seimas with the draft budget at an earlier date, so that the Seimas and the President are granted sufficient time for better understanding the Government proposals and discussing all the alternatives. Notably, in any process of belt-tightening under economic recession, people are more important than the belts.
The Seimas as the ultimate representative of the nation is entitled to debate issues of foreign policy, and not just ratify international agreements. Therefore, I believe that the Seimas as a whole and the Foreign Affairs Committee in particular could be more effective in guiding the national foreign policy in the areas of key relevance to Lithuania.
First of all, Lithuania cannot remain uninvolved into the debate on the New Strategic Concept of NATO while the Alliance struggles to define a new role for itself in the international security architecture. I think that one of the key problems NATO faces today is the lack of solidarity on the part of all of the Allies.
Lithuania should put a lot of emphasis on the negotiations on the new EU Russia Partnership Agreement. I consider that the new EU Russia Agreement should be legally binding, cover all areas of cooperation, and set clear restrictions on bilateral agreements entered at a later stage between individual EU members and Russia.
Russia’s sanctions imposed on our carriers and dairy producers this summer as well as the results of the sanctions have demonstrated that Lithuania did not have any effective mechanisms in place to allow for fast and adequate reaction to similar situations, nor was it ready to engage in proactive action. This calls for urgent solutions and casts doubts on whether we have learnt any lessons from the crises.
The EU may be in need of an institution acting as a permanent body to regulate trade conflicts and, most importantly, engage in proactive action. I think that Lithuania could consider this idea in greater detail and submit it to the relevant authorities.
Colleagues,
I am sure that the people in Lithuania do not want revolutions, nor do they support endless reforms and breakthroughs. What the people lack most is stability and predictability, as well as moderate and trustworthy future prospects. This is what we all need, including the business sector, public officers, youth, current and future pensioners, teachers, students and pupils, doctors and patients, law and order enforcement authorities.
Unfortunately, the current decade has led to a social and political paradox: the more enthusiasm, radical trends, lustre, and readiness to fight a political battle there was in political discourse, the more disillusionment and lack of trust in a better future there was in the minds of the people.
Therefore, I invite you to refrain from seeing my today’s address as top-down preaching or moralization. Instead, it was aimed to demonstrate the natural care I take in the Seimas and an attempt to restore popular trust in the parliament and improve its effectiveness.
When I referred to the errors committed by the Seimas, I criticised myself first and foremost. On this occasion, I apologize for my errors committed in my current tenure and any misunderstandings arising through my fault. Thank you for your criticism and for your understanding.
With hard times for the state ahead of us next year, I invite you to live and be governed by the words of the late Pope John Paul II, “We are separated by a mere trifle: only our views.”
Thank you.
