Press release, 10 September 2015
Opening the seventh regular (autumn) session of the Seimas on 10 September, Loreta Graužinienė, Speaker of the Seimas, and Algirdas Butkevičius, Prime Minister, presented the draft Work Programme to the parliamentarians. The leader of the parliament read a welcome address on behalf of Dalia Grybauskaitė, President of the Republic of Lithuania.
The registered draft Work Programme includes 677 draft legislative acts (in addition to the accompanying draft legislation) out of which 184 were proposed by the Government, 15 by the President, and more than 370 by members/political groups of the Seimas.
Among the key draft legal acts, the Speaker of the Seimas singled out those on the development of a national social model, including a new version of the Labour Code, Law on Employment, Law on State Social Insurance, and those on the approval of the State and municipal budgets, budgets of the State Social Insurance Fund and Compulsory Health Insurance Fund for 2016.
Addressing the parliamentarians, Loreta Graužinienė called for constructive work: “The main task of the Seimas and its members is to adopt and release quality legislation that would allow our society to use it practically in real life causing as few misunderstandings as possible. Therefore, the more we will discuss with social partners and among ourselves, the more ideological debates the parliament will have, the better our decisions and the final result will be, as truth can emerge only from a debate.”
Meanwhile, outlining the priorities for the autumn session Algirdas Butkevičius focused on a new social model developed by the Government. According to the Prime Minister, a package of nearly 40 laws is socially oriented and allows fulfilling the promises of the sixteenth Government to their voters, in particular equal care for the employed and willing to be employed: “We have put before the Seimas a complex document regulating more flexible employment relationships, reliable social guarantees, more effective protection for the unemployed and control by employers to avoid abuses.”
Mr Butkevičius said that “the system of the state social insurance being restructured, notably the pension system, will allow for indexation, at regular intervals and based on objective economic data, of pensions in order to link them to wage growth.”
Other key projects for the session aim at reforming the child protection system; implementing educational, scientific and cultural policy as well as health promotion policy improving the quality and accessibility of health services; strengthening foreign and defence policy; improving business environment; and reducing the size of the shadow economy, in particular increasing the control efficiency and transparency and credibility of financial operations.
The autumn session will also address energy efficiency and security, strengthening of the rule of law and rule and order, agriculture and rural development, environment, public administration, local government, electoral and other issues.
The draft Work Programme received 87 votes in favour with no votes against and 37 abstentions. Following the presentation, the programme drafted upon proposals by the Government, committees, political groups and members of the Seimas will next be considered by the committees and political groups of the Seimas. The debate at a plenary session is scheduled for 17 September.
Saulė Eglė Trembo, Public Relations Unit, Communications Department, Office of the Seimas,
tel. +370 5 239 6203, e-mail: egle.trembo@lrs.lt