Gitanas Nausėda

On 22 November, Nausėda and Duda, as well as the First Lady of Poland Agata Kornhauser-Duda participated in the state funeral of commanders and participants in the 1863–1864 uprising against Tsarist rule in Vilnius.

During his visit to Vilnius, Duda highlighted the Central European nations' unity importance for their independence.

Gitanas Nausėda (born 19 May 1964) is a Lithuanian politician, economist and banker who is serving as the ninth and current president of Lithuania since 2019.

Nausėda was born on 19 May 1964 in the port city Klaipėda on the Baltic coast.

He started his secondary studies at the Klaipėda 5th Secondary School and also attended the Klaipėda Music School where he sang in the boys’ choir "Gintarėlis".

After secondary school he moved to Vilnius where he studied Industrial Economics from 1982 to 1987 at Vilnius University, he continued his studies as a post-graduate student of Economics from 1987 until 1989.

From 1987 to 2004 he hosted occasional economics lecturers at the University.

While at university Nausėda registered to join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1988 at the age of 24.

From 1990 to 1992 he did a practice at the University of Mannheim in Germany under the DAAD scholarship.

Having completed his studies, from 1992 to 1993 he worked for the Research Institute for Economics and Privatization.

He defended his PhD thesis "Income Policy Under Inflation and Stagflation" in 1993.

From 1993 to 1994 he worked for the Lithuanian Competition Council as a head of the Financial Markets Department.

Upon returning to Lithuania, he worked for the Lithuanian Competition Council as Head of the Financial Markets Department until 1994.

From 1994 to 2000 he worked at the Bank of Lithuania, initially in the department regulating the commercial banks and later as a director of the Monetary Policy Department.

He was previously director of monetary policy at the Bank of Lithuania from 1996 to 2000 and chief economist to the chairman of SEB bankas from 2008 to 2018.

From 2000 to 2008 he was a chief economist and adviser to the chairman of AB Vilniaus Bankas.

In 2004, he supported the election campaign of the former Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus.

From 2008 to 2018 he was the financial analyst as well as chief adviser and later the chief economist for the SEB bankas president.

Since 2009 he has been an associate professor at Vilnius University Business School.

On 17 September 2018, Nausėda announced his candidacy for the 2019 Lithuanian presidential election.

He finished just 2,000 votes behind former Finance Minister Ingrida Šimonytė in the first round, and defeated her in the runoff with 66 percent of the vote.

He was officially inaugurated on 12 July.

Nausėda presented acting Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis's candidacy to continue his duties on 18 July.

By the time he had spent a month in office, Nausėda was considered to be the most trusted politician in Lithuania according to polls conducted by the Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT).

During a meeting in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in August 2019, Nausėda urged her to maintain sanctions against Russia.

In April 2020, President Nausėda and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had their nations' first presidential tête-à-tête in 10 years.

Following the Lukashenko government's crackdown on protesters after the disputed 2020 Belarusian presidential elections (which were widely regarded as unfree and unfair) and the resulting protests, Belarusian opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya fled to Lithuania.

Nausėda's leadership during the crisis has been noted for being one that augmented Lithuania's role among European Union nations.

On 12 August, he ordered that Lithuania open its borders to all Belarusians for humanitarian purposes.

That day, he also presented a plan on the settlement of the crisis, being supported by Latvia and Poland, which consisted of three points that included a call for the creation of a national council from the Belarusian Government and civilian society.

In an interview with Sky News on 13 August, he declared Lukashenko as "no longer the legitimate leader".

Nausėda has been critical of the safety of the Astravets Nuclear Power Plant in Belarus.

In May 2020, during a conference call with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, he called on Armenia to share its experience with the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant to Belarus over concerns over the Astravets Nuclear Power Plant.

On 23 May 2021, in the immediate aftermath of the hijacking of Ryanair flight 4578, where two journalists outspoken against the Lukashenko regime in Belarus were arrested, Nausėda called for EU recognition of Belarusian airspace as "unsafe for civilian aviation" and the immediate release of the arrested journalist Roman Protasevich.

By the evening of 23 May Nausėda has secured the support of both the leaders of Latvia and Estonia in recognising Belarusian airspace as unsafe to enter.

Nausėda has made multiple efforts to engage in better relations with Poland, being seen as a personal ally of the Polish leadership.

On 16 July, four days after his inauguration, he visited Warsaw to meet with President Andrzej Duda in his first foreign visit as president.

During the visit, there were calls for him to establish a more personal relationship with the country.

He also rejected any attempt by European Union leaders to sanction Poland for its actions in relation to the Supreme Court of Poland and the rest of the country's judiciary.

In January 2020, Nausėda joined Duda in pulling out of the 5th World Holocaust Forum, who criticized the event for giving the speaking slot to Russian president Putin, who has himself criticized Poland's WWII history by engaging in a historical revisionist campaign.