Laima Andrikienė

Laima Liucija Andrikienė (born 1 January 1958 in Druskininkai) is a Lithuanian politician, signatory of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, former member of the Seimas and the European Parliament for the Homeland Union (Lithuanian Conservatives).

Andrikienė was born in Druskininkai on 1 January 1958. In 1980 Andrikienė graduated from Vilnius University with a degree in Economics and Math. She worked as an engineer, an later as a research fellow, at the Lithuanian Institute for Research of Agricultural Economy. She successfully concluded doctoral studies in 1994.

In 1990 Andrikienė was elected to the Supreme Council of Lithuania and was a signatory to the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania. In the elections in 1992, she was elected as the member of the Sixth Seimas through the electoral list of Sąjūdis. In 1996, representing Homeland Union, she was elected for another term of the Seimas in Pramonės (17) single-seat constituency in Kaunas.

In December 1996 Andrikienė was appointed the Minister of the Industry and Trade for a short time. Later same month she was appointed a Minister of European Affairs.

Andrikienė left the Homeland Union at the end of 1998 together with her husband and fellow member of the Seimas Vidmantas Žiemelis. In 1999 they founded a short-lived Popular Homeland Party. In 2001 she joined the Lithuanian Union of the Right and in 2003 rejoined the Homeland Union.

In 2004 Andrikienė was elected to the European Parliament for Lithuania. She was elected from the electoral list of the Homeland Union and sat with the European People's Party. She was reelected in 2009. As from 30 May 2016, Laima Liucija Andrikiene replaced Gabrielius Landsbergis as an MEP for her third term. She is a Member of the International Trade Committee, Member of Sub-Committee on Security and Defense, Substitute Member of Foreign Affairs Committee, 1st Vice Chair of the Delegation to the EU-Kazakhstan, EU-Kyrgyzstan, EU-Uzbekistan and EU-Tajikistan Parliamentary Cooperation Committees and for relations with Turkmenistan and Mongolia and a Substitute Member of the Delegation for the relations with the United States. In 2018 she won the International Trade Award of the Parliament Magazine’s Annual MEP Awards.