https://www.politico.eu/article/political-newcomer-new-lithuanian-pm-inga-ruginiene/>Lithuania’s parliament Tuesday approved Inga Ruginienė — a longtime trade unionist and political newcomer — as prime minister, following the resignation of Gintautas Paluckas amid allegations about his financial dealings.
>Ruginienė, 44, now has 15 days to submit the government’s program — which will be focused on security, economic growth and social welfare, and will likely look similar to the previous program — to the parliament.
>Social Democrat Ruginienė entered politics last year, taking the social security and labor portfolio in the government. Until then, her career was rooted in the trade union movement: she served in senior positions in both Lithuanian and European union organizations.What are we thinking, /leftypol/?
Ruginienė : Let's separate two things. If we are talking about minds and highly qualified employees, then there are no thoughts of stopping these flows. I think that we, as Lithuania, should be proud that we attract highly qualified people who can work here. But basically, when we talk about labor migrants, we are talking about people with low added value or low qualifications, they are the largest mass. Where our migrants come to work is construction, transport, certain industrial enterprises, where these people work in the lowest positions.
When we talk about low qualifications, then there are completely different stories. Then we also have stories that taxes are not necessarily paid, we also talk about the platforms that we had, when migrants register on platforms, go abroad and leave unpaid taxes. There are various stories, but I can be happy that movement between European Union countries is finally recovering and we have a number of workers who move within the European Union itself. It seems to me that we should encourage this, improving working conditions and increasing salaries. If we are attractive with our jobs, then people from other European Union countries will also come to work with us and fill the shortage that we have.
Most of the discussions are about the need for cheap labor from third countries to come to Lithuania and plug those holes. So what does cheap labor do? Cheap labor hinders the improvement of job standards and wage growth.
. Ruginienė: There are services here that are able to look and check as much as they can, and we have been discussing this in more than one discussion for many years, that it is necessary to limit migration, we are not talking about closed borders, because the movement of people must take place, but there should be a policy of controlled migration.
I. Ruginienė: First of all, two things. First, it is an absolute priority - highly qualified employees, who are actually quite difficult to train within Lithuania and, if such people come to work, their salaries are higher, and the taxes are of a completely different size. The second thing is cheap labor. Why do we say that migration must be controlled - we need to know when a person entered Lithuania, where he works, where he moves.
I. Ruginienė: We hardly have that exact picture and we don't have that unified information base where that data could come into play. The second thing is that we talk less and less about integration processes. Of course, our biggest priority would probably be for a person to come for a longer period of time, to pay taxes normally, not so that after working a little, they leave and forget to pay and maybe never return. Such people do not add value, but it is necessary for them to come, integrate, study, as the member of the Seimas says, learn the Lithuanian language and adapt to our society. Any person who comes to live and work in our country must know our system and adopt democratic values, but not to introduce their own.
https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/verslas/4/2473113/ruginiene-apie-tamsiaja-migracijos-puse-gresme-lietuvai-ir-nesumokami-mokesciai>>2450393The opposite guy from another political party in the interview was more pro immigration than her
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simonas_GentvilasS. Gentvilas: Because migration is a normal thing for a welfare state. Every tenth job in Lithuania is occupied by third-country nationals, who work because Lithuania is starting to lack workers, unemployment in Lithuania is 6 percent. We need young, talented people, and Lithuania has finally become a country of brain attraction, not brain drain, in the last 5 years, Lithuania is recovering.
Lithuania is growing compared to the economies of Estonia and Latvia because Lithuania has a managed, correct migration policy. We have not had any major agitation, we do not have illegal migrants walking the streets. Everyone who comes works, half of them work in the logistics sector – 60-70 thousand. We do not have big problems here, we just have a supplemented "Sodra", we have a service sector that exists, we have employers and an industrial construction sector that has employees. Lithuania needs all this in order to grow and not have to delay the retirement age in Lithuania, reduce social benefits because these people come here to work and pay taxes
S. Gentvilas : Look, there is a shortage of half a million drivers across Europe and they are paid a salary of 2 thousand euros in cash. There are no bad standards here, they are regulated at the European Union level. This means that 95 percent of Lithuanian transport companies, such as "Girteka" and others, are owned by the same Belarusians, foreigners who transfer their salaries to the Lithuanian "Sodra" every month. It seems to me that the Lithuanian logistics sector in the European Union is already recognized as one of the leaders and now to say that those foreigners are somehow exploited, they do not pay taxes here… We can talk about some extremes, but in principle 90 percent of these people work in the economy, they pay taxes in Lithuania, some of them want to learn the Lithuanian language and we need to try to prevent these 10 percent from being extreme and exploited.
S. Gentvilas: I mean more that often the immigrant is the weaker side compared to the employer, and can end up in non-contracted work, there may be some cases of exploitation, ignorance of working conditions. Those stories are repeated in all countries, so we need to look at those migrants so that they know their rights and can apply to Lithuanian institutions.
S. Gentvilas: Vilnius trolleybuses and buses are already being used by workers invited from India. They receive, there are even advertisements, 1,200–1,400 euros in hand. The Employment Service has registered almost 150,000 long-term unemployed people. The unemployment rate in Lithuania is normal – 6–7 percent. In principle, we do not have high unemployment. Foreigners do not take jobs, they allow the development of the service sector in Lithuania and in restaurants and the construction sector. Buses would not go to work, restaurants would not serve meals if they did not exist.
https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/verslas/4/2473113/ruginiene-apie-tamsiaja-migracijos-puse-gresme-lietuvai-ir-nesumokami-mokesciai Prime Minister-designate Inga Ruginienė believes that Lithuania will eventually have to introduce universal military conscription.
“I think we may not be able to avoid it,” she told 15min.lt in an interview on Wednesday.
“I have to admit I’ve always supported a professional army. I believe that a motivated person can move mountains. Ruginienė said.
https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2656601/lithuania-may-not-be-able-to-avoid-universal-conscription-pm-designateShe emphasised that she maintained no ties with Russian trade union organisations during her tenure at the Lithuanian Confederation of Trade Unions, and declined to attend training events held in St Petersburg.
“There was a time when we, as trade unions, were part of the global organisation, the International Trade Union Confederation, which included Russia, until the war in Ukraine began,” Ruginienė said. “I was very glad that, in cooperation with our Scandinavian partners, we managed to remove Russian unions from these organisations. We now have a completely different composition.”
Ruginienė voiced firm support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion. “There can be no other position,” she said.
Ruginienė later specified that her family ties in Russia consist of several “distant relatives” in Moscow.
“They are pensioners who live in Moscow. That’s all, I don’t know if there’s anything special to say about it,” she told TV3 on Thursday.
According to the politician, she hardly communicates with those relatives “for objective reasons”, such as divergent views on the war in Ukraine.
https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2636072/lithuanian-pm-candidate-ruginiene-addresses-past-trips-to-russia-family-ties-to-ukraine>>2450398gentvilas is a neoliberal
>>2450414liberals are not reactionary
>>2450337I'm from Lithuania and I can say a few things. First, she has been around some more radlib sort of people, more radical than the norm, but still with that pseudo-leftist bullshit. I think she is however more concerned about economy.
The thing with the military expenditure is probably just her giving up to the pressure from other bourgeois parties, because when she was in the elections as a normal member of parliament, she was against raising it
there is no socialist left in Lithuania that isn't full of radlibs, petty bourgeois elements and similar nonsense
she is the last prime minister before the inevitable reactionary takeover in three years, just like in any other european country
>>2450337how shitty are their labor unions? pure management tools of capital or is there some radicality in there? I'd bet on the former, given they're balts, but I dont know
>which will be focused on security, economic growth and social welfare, and will likely look similar to the previous program oh, so nothing changing from the previous neolib is the plan?
>>2450398>Foreigners do not take jobs, they allow the development of the service sector in Lithuania and in restaurants and the construction sector. <plz we need an underclass of underpaid foreigners for shit jobs, there is not enough unemployment to pressure local workers hard>>2450616>liberals are not reactionaryhuh, yes, they are now, we're not in the fucking 19th century, although I guess it depends what you mean by "liberals" and "reactionary"
>First, she has been around some more radlib sort of people, more radical than the norm, but still with that pseudo-leftist bullshit. I think she is however more concerned about economy.>The thing with the military expenditure is probably just her giving up to the pressure from other bourgeois parties, because when she was in the elections as a normal member of parliament, she was against raising it>there is no socialist left in Lithuania that isn't full of radlibs, petty bourgeois elements and similar nonsenseso basically you get a mild center left that gonna have to concede to the right and neolibs and completely destroy their credibility as socdem as a result, paving the way for far right immigration obsessed schizos to win next time
classic bourgeois "democracy"
>>2450756>ow shitty are their labor unions? pure management tools of capital or is there some radicality in there? I'd bet on the former, given they're balts, but I dont knowlabor unions are irrelevant, starting a strike is extremely difficult and a long process so they have no power
>so basically you get a mild center left that gonna have to concede to the right and neolibs and completely destroy their credibility as socdem as a result, paving the way for far right immigration obsessed schizos to win next timeyes that's exactly what's happening here and probably the rest of Europe
it's just not very radical, the other factions of the bourgeoisie call the government radical left but it's a very standard sort of left-wing social democratic government
the party which will probably be in power in the future will be the christian democrats, being lead by a supposedly only "FORMER" neo-nazi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurynas_Kas%C4%8Di%C5%ABnasthe far-right here is much more prominent in the media, general culture here than anything even slightly left-wing, all social media platforms except for ironically perhaps Facebook are dominated and moderated by them
>>2450756Labour unions in Lithuania are weak as shit because of strike laws but the real problem here is that nobody fucking joins them lol
There is no labour advocacy culture. Ironically under Ingas management they started to gain some momentum and she promised to focus on NGOs and Trade Unions while in parliament but that does not mean the only good trade union (labour union? It's not for people in one profession it's for workers in heneral) in Lithuania G1PS or Gegužės 1 union or May 1st union should be calm. They should be calling her like crazy and asking her to repeal laws which make worker strikes de facto illegal and toothless or laws which make it so employers can't be held accountable for forming fake trade unions thus preventing workers from forming their own independent union
>>2450616>liberals are not reactionaryrofl you know reactionary doesnt mean "social values i dont like", right
when the whole world is already capitalist liberals are reactionary and only communism is progressive
>>2451027the pro-Russian shit is absolute cope, their only one argument is that the authors don't write about Ukraine much + they support Palestine = they are pro-Russian
>>2451022everything with labor is so depressing here but it's not surprising, we are a periphery of the EU
>>2451050I don't agree with the definition
reactionaries in the past tried to go back to feudalism, hence their sometimes shallow anti-capitalism, I think Thomas Carlyle was one such person
liberals want to keep the same order as is, not go back in history
>>2452839>If the Soviet Union was so great, why ain't it around no more?Betrayed by wreckers. Yakovlev in particularly did unbelievable amount of wrecking in the Baltics.
"Revealing" the "secret protocols" of the Non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, promoting the popular fronts, lied constantly to the politburo about the situation in Baltics, doing all could with his commission to aid the separatists.
Politburo member Yegor Ligachev recalls in his memoir about Yakovlev's report from a politburo assignment
>At the beginning of September 1988, Gorbachev went off for his vacation in the Crimea. He officially left me in charge, and I chaired a session of the Politburo. As usual, there was more than enough business. Among other matters, I found on my desk a report from the KGB on the destabilization of the situation in Lithuania that immediately caught my eye and demanded that I have a better assessment of the meaning of the events there. A few days after that report, Yakovlev returned from Lithuania. As was the custom, he called me, and I asked how the situation was in Lithuania. Yakovlev answered, 'There's nothing special going on. Just the normal processes of perestroika." I have to admit that I was amazed by the dramatic difference in opinion between this member of the Politburo and the KGB report. I immediately called KGB chairman Viktor Chebrikov, and asked him not to meddle in the situation. "You say that the situation in Lithuania is taking a dangerous turn, but Yakovlev, who just came back from there, says that there's nothing special going on and no reason to take special measures." "What do you mean, 'nothing special'?" Chebrikov asked in astonishment, "I stand by what we wrote in our report for the Central Committee. The situation is alarming, not calm, and a consolidation of nationalistic forces has begun." Whom should I believe? I knew what to do when there is such a major difference in opinion on an important question—study the matter carefully. True, I would not be candid if I didn't say that the strange contradiction in analyses disturbed me more than the KGB report itself. This was not logic at work, but political instincts. So I immediately called Gorbachev in the South.Ligachev, Yegor. Inside Gorbachev's Kremlin: The Memoirs Of Yegor Ligachev (pp. 137-138).
>"Mikhail Sergeyevich, I'd like your consent to include in the agenda for the next Politburo session the question of Comrade Yakovlev's trip to Lithuania. According to the KGB report, an unhealthy situation is brewing there." Gorbachev agreed, and soon after that a memorable session of the Politburo took place. Yakovlev was the first to give his presentation. He said, "There's nothing dangerous going on in the republic. The same is true of the work and activities of the Lithuanian Communist Party. Yes, there are complications caused by the fact that the center has dictated much that damaged the development of the republic. Union agencies are overloading Lithuania with industry, which has damaged the ecology. Russians are flooding in, unfortunately not the very best people, and migration to the republic is growing. That causes clashes; there is documentation that the Russian-speaking population is treating die native population with disrespect. In connection with that, I suggest the following. First, intensify the work of local agencies with the normative population. Second, stop migration. On the whole, the situation in Lithuania is not easy, but it isn't critical. The republic should get through this in the course of perestroika." I'm not quoting from memory, but from the notes I made during Yakovlev's presentation.Ligachev, Yegor. Inside Gorbachev's Kremlin: The Memoirs Of Yegor Ligachev (p. 138).
>It goes without saying that at the 28th Party Congress, I had no chance to tell the truth about the memorable Politburo session at which Yakovlev reported on the situation in Lithuania. Like other Politburo members, I had to give my own report before the Congress. But I was shocked when Yakovlev, in answer to a direct question about his analysis of the situation in Lithuania in August 1988, said that he hadn't written any report for the Politburo and didn't know what people were talking about. That was not an honest answer. There is yet another parallel between the working meeting on Tbilisi and the situation in Lithuania. During Gorbachev's trip to Lithuania and his meetings with the Lithuanian intelligentsia on television, you could hear praise for Yakovlev from the supporters of Sajudis [the movement for Lithuanian rights and independence]. Given the subsequent developments in Lithuania, that praise certainly is suggestive—as Kardamiavicius said at the Central Committee plenum.Ligachev, Yegor. Inside Gorbachev's Kremlin: The Memoirs Of Yegor Ligachev (pp. 144-145).
Yakovlev openly admitted in an Estonian nationalist documentary that was trying to his very best to aid the Baltic separatists by misleading the people's deputies, by making sure the Yakovlev commission avoided a legal analysis of the "secret protocols". The Estonian nationalist documentary also showed footage of Yakovlev during the Perestroika era [don't know when though] clearly in support of the separatists, and asking for visa rights to avoid potential hostility for his betrayal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYD6ouVHXbo&t=2292s Yakovlev also apparently made public statements that added fire for the separatists. Citing soviet78's great essay "Alexander Yakovlev, Glasnost, and the Destruction of Soviet Societal Consciousness"
https://web.archive.org/web/20220718180837/http://www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/viewtopic.php?f=110&t=52073
>Public statements by Alexander Yakovlev did not help the centre in its struggle to keep the country together. Taking a trip to the Baltics in August 1988, he encouraged the newly formed, proto-nationalist popular front organizations there by noting that while “a state in the form of a union must have a common defence and foreign policy…the rest…ought to be the prerogative of the republics.”229 Printed in all the major republican media organs in Lithuania and Latvia, Yakovlev’s message and encouragement were of such importance that the Lithuanian Sajudis Popular Front organization would come to divide historical time into ‘pre-Yakovlev’ and ‘post-Yakovlev. Ok, I will crawl back from my self exile to give a QRD and bonk over the head some professional "your country understanders".
TLDR: an clean political marionette who happens to be a trade-unionist got appointed as a puppet-PM by the corrupt-as-shit LSDP establishment to avoid another government collapse
Long story:
Let us go back to 2024. The ruling Fatherland Union (pro-EU big tent party with everyone from Macron-liberals to Merz-conservatives) coalition is the second most unpopular thing since gonorrhea. LSDP (socdems) are set to win the election, but new parties are also getting ready to cut themselves a piece of FU pie. One of them are the Democrats, a sort of populist provincial pro-western liberal party (an eclectic monster that only an obscure country like Lithuania or, I don't fucking know, some banana republic like Uruguay could spawn), which is lead by Saulius Skvernerlis, a Quixotic man with a big ego that is only matched by his ability to make middle-aged ladies from the provinces cum instantly upon seeing his wide, balding dog-faced head. The other party were nazies, or rather a personality cult for the nazi-in-chief, Remigijus Žemaitaitis (these fuckers literally wear brownshirts as official party uniform). Remigijus himself is a reactionary attack dog whose main beliefs are… 1) Jews are evil, 2) Nazi warcrimes were done by Jews, 3) Fuck Ukraine, 4) Bread and games for my subhuman lumpenprole voterbase (also its worth noting that he is all-but-proven to be a Russian stooge, but I'm afraid the local tankies might bust a gasket upon learning that the biggest "Baltoid Nazi" is Russian-sponsored).
Socdems up to the election are pulling all the stops to get a landslide victory. The party is nominally lead to the election by Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, a fat corrupt cunt of the ex-soviet bureaucrat variety, who everyone with a single functioning neuron knew would never become the prime minister due to her valuing her cushy EU MP post far too much. Never the less, LSDP is going into the election with promises of never entering a coalition with the nazies and having the glorious leader Vilija leading a new, red golden age. So anyway, election day comes and LSDP underperforms against the new parties - sure, the Fatherland Union gets eviscerated, but now the socdems find themselves with no "normal" coalition partners - the Liberals are too ideologically apart and carry the stink of the last coalition, nazies are nazies and no one really wants their shit, Democrats massive ego cockblocks a coalition with the Peasants (a dying party of farmers, antivaxxers and generally all the braindead lumpenproles too retarded to know their interests and vote LSDP and too bound to the earth to realize that being a nazi is the new hip thing for their rotten kind) because Skvernelis hates the oligarch leader of the peasants. So ultimately this conundrum is solved by pissing on all the promises of not allying with the nazies and inviting them into the government along with the Democrats by bribing Skvernelis's ego with Speaker of the Seimas post and shitting on the Peasants. Oh, and of course Vilija instantly accepts the bargain to become the countries most hated politician in exchange for staying in Brussels, leaving behind a corrupt as shit "young" socdem Gintautas Paluckas at the wheel of Prime Minister, mostly because everyone else is either too fucking old, too low ranking or too deep in corruption. It is worth noting that Paluckas was a fairly hopeful figure in the last election, leading the LSDP on a rather progressive program that was eviscerated by LSDP establishment after socdems got stomped. Somewhere along the way he became another tool in the corrupt apparatchik shed, one with millions in offshore Brazilian plantation assets, no less!
So anyway, this red-yellow-brown coalition… kind of did fuck all for a year? There was a tax-reform, that ultimately lead to rather watered down results after the Fatherland Union rallied all the business interests against it, as well as when the nazies (as well as a movement of schizophrenic MAGA-types) called in another subhuman rally in the capital against the increased taxes (best coalition partners ever!). Along side this, the LSDP did its best to get some of its members out of corruption charges, like the mayor of Jonava, Mindaugas Sinkevičius, another young socdem that was looking down the barrel of a shotgun of having his entire career destroyed over embezzling a few hundred euros. Its quite telling that the only other "big thing" was when some American soldiers drowned in a swamp during exercises. But this peaceful lazyness was broken when an ungrateful liberal journalist decided to throw stones against such a magnanimous coalition and revealed to the world that Paluckas was embezzling state funds via his own and also his brothers private companies. After a month or so of fighting a war against the lying news media, the tax inspection got involved and the poor, poor premier fell overnight, and thus the government collapsed.
So, what happens now? LSDP got scrambling for a new MP. Some mummies started making noise about "being willing to stand up", however they were quickly put back on the bench. Ironically, it was Sinkevičius, the slightly-crooked mayor that ended up taking over the party and was assumed to be the next PM. But then those damn journalists, Hunter Biden style, found his used TV in some random retail shop and it was tracked that it was embezzled as well. Meanwhile another "rising star" mayor, Robert Duchnevič of Vilnius Outskirts who was believed to be the white knight of LSDP that vanquished the Polish minorities candidate on their home turf, got dirtied up over findings of his wives IT company always winning local state purchases for services… the specifics for which were always prepared on Duchnevič's hope PC… Granted, these events didn't ring out too loudly, but the blood was in the water and I assume that what happened is that LSDP realized they fucking can't put any Star Players to the MP post, because they are all covered in slime, so the best bet was Inga Ruginienė - a fucking nobody, a completely new face, and one who has less charisma on camera than fucking Hakeem Jeffries. Like, one of her first interviews after PM announcement had a gem where a reporter asked her about her support for Palestine (note that in Lithuania support leans mostly for Palestine in a bleeding-heart liberal kind of way, while maintaining diplomatic support for Israel and Two-State Solution, so being anti-Gaza invasion is not unacceptable at all, especially not when your coalition partner is screaming /pol/ shit) and she just fucking melted and tried to deflect with something about evil journalists and Fatherland Union voters protesting Paluckas.
And of course, the cherry on the cake - the new government. Skvernelis's ego got the better of him, and he might also felt like LSDP was on its back foot, so he wanted to bully them into kicking the nazies out of the new government. In turn, the nazies stay and he is kicked out instead, his seats being replaced by the aforementioned Peasant party, as well as the Polish minority party (schizoid catholic reactionaries btw) that the LSDP was so happy to have vanquished two years prior in mayoral races.
So where does this leave us? The rose has fucking wilted. Even last year when the nazies were first invited to the government, a few of their more progressive members jumped the ship, however this trend didn't seem to escalate. Personally, I was hopeful that perhaps this would be the birth of a new party that would detach from the corrupt past of LSDP but nothing like that occurred. Likely we are now looking at 4 years of total spoil-system looting of the government and entrenchment of a new generation of apparatchiks that will have to be purged from the bureaucracy come next government. Can LSDP even survive next elections? Who the fuck knows, but at this point literally everyone that isn't a lumpenprole is looking at this shit like its the hour of the wolf, either due to the fucking brownshirt nazies in government, the pro-Russian sympathies of Peasants and nazies or just the plain fact that this is the most corrupt AND retarded government (basically every new minister has fuck-all political experience) in the countries history, and one that will have 4 years to fuck around, so long as something funny doesn't happen.
>>2463820you fell for the bourgeois propaganda of konservatoriai
the attack on the government is literally just a political struggle because some reforms and the program wasn't good enough for capital
if you fall for this corruption shit then you are naive as fuck
this government is just as corrupt as the last one and so on, nothing is different apart from the rabid way that tapinas and others are looking into politicians
Ruginienė was interrogated over shit like finishing a degree earlier and going to Russia, as well as her accent lmfao
and žemaitaitis isn't a nazi, just a hero of the lumpenproles
the real nazis, the real MAGA is TS-LKD. žemaitaitis was never the second in command of a nazi party. the leader of TS-LKD however is
when in a few years or whatever this government goes away, you'll be praying they come back because wr'll have a trumpist government (some sectors of capital + lumpenproles + the petty bourgeoisie) who will make everything worse
the current party isn't communist or socialist in any way, but I won't fall for media propaganda when they are CLEARLY trying to set up a maidan here
>>2464285True, Zemaitaitis is a nobody really. He is just a barking dog who will be content if you give him a bone, his rhetoric is without bite. Also he is somehiw the most rehotorically anti-zionist politician in Lithuania obviously he does not actually give a fuck about Palestine but it's still hilarious in a sad way
Meanwhile konservatoriai are fucking nazis lead by an actual fucking nazi who is not that different from Zemaitaitis himself but unlike Zemaitaitis liberal elite accepts him as their own so he is ok
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