Aušra Seibutytė-Maldeikienė (born 4 June 1958) is šraMaldeikienėa Lithuanian political economist, politician, lecturer, teacher, publicist and book author.
In 2019 she was elected to the European Parliament, having previously sat as a member of the Seimas (Lithuanian Parliament) since 2016 and Vilnius City Council (2015–2016).
Biography
After graduating from Antanas Vienuolis Secondary School (currently Vytautas Magnus Gymnasium) in Vilnius in 1976, Aušra Maldeikienė studied in the Faculty of Finance and Credit at the Vilnius University (then named Vilnius Order of the Red Banner of Labour State University of Vincas Kapsukas) and continued the studies in the Economics Faculty at the Lomonosov Moscow State University. She graduated from the latter in 1982, obtaining a qualification of Economist and Lecturer in Political Economy.
From 1982 to 1984 she worked in Vilnius University and lectured in Aleksandras Stulginskis University (then the Lithuanian Academy of Agriculture). She continued as an aspirant at the Lomonosov Moscow State University from 1984 till 1987 and defended her dissertation "Main economic law of the socialism under the conditions of intense economy" obtaining a Candidate of Economic Sciences degree (which in Lithuania is now recognized as PhD in Social Science). Later, in 2007, she also received a Master's degree in Religious Sciences at the Centre for Religious Studies and Research, Vilnius University.
Since 1987 she has lectured in Lithuanian Veterinary Academy (now Veterinary Academy at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences). Since 1990 she was a columnist and analyst in a national newspaper Lietuvos rytas. From 1993 till 1997 she was a spokesperson and head of the Public Relations Unit in Vilnius bank (now SEB Bank). From 1997 till 2000 she was a chief editor of Business Section in the news agency Baltic News Service. From 1999 till 2003 she was a lecturer in the International Business School at Vilnius University (now Vilnius University Business School). From 1999 till 2000 she had undergone a course in media (column-writing) at Green Templeton College (the University of Oxford). From 2001 till 2013 she was a Teacher of Economics in Vilnius Jesuit High School and from 2004 till 2016 as an associate professor at the Department of Econometric Analysis, Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Vilnius University.
She has written economic handbooks for schools, as well as other books on topics of economics, finances and business, Economy of Lies becoming a bestseller in Lithuania, and translated eight books of foreign authors to Lithuanian. She participated in column "Economist commentary" in national radio station "Žinių radijas", commented economic events, published articles in the nationals news portal DELFI, and has her own blog. Her publications include economic, social exclusion, taxes (value added tax, income tax, estate taxes), national institutions, e.g. Lithuanian social security fund SoDra, tax evasion, her regular reports of a work as a city council member, comments on public life and analysis of fiction literature.
Political career
Early beginnings
After one day symbolic period of membership in the Liberal Democratic Party (now Order and Justice), which she joined in order to protest the "overly harsh" treatment by opponents of Rolandas Paksas (president at that time, undergoing impeachment), she was a candidate of the Civic Democratic party at the 2009 elections of the European Parliament. In 2015 Lithuanian municipal and 2016 Lithuanian parliamentary elections she participated together with a party "Lithuanian List", though she didn't become its member, and is currently an independent politician.
In 2015 she was elected to the Vilnius City Council.
Member of the Lithuanian Parliament, 2016–2019
In 2016 Maldeikienė was elected to the Seimas in a single-member district constituency of Žirmūnai (Vilnius City). As an MP she was a deputy chair of the Non-attached Members faction and served as a deputy chair of the Committee on European Affairs and member of Committee on Audit, as well as a member in the Freedom Prize Commission and Commission for the Rights of People with Disabilities.
