Vilija Blinkevičiūtė

Vilija Blinkevičiūtė (born 3 March 1960 in Linkuva, Lithuania) is a Lithuanian lawyer and a politician, Member of the European Parliament and a long-term Minister for Social Security and Labour. Blinkevičiūtė is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania since 2006.

Blinkevičiūtė was born in Linkuva, Lithuania. After graduation with honours from Linkuva Secondary School, she entered Law Faculty of the Vilnius State University, from which she graduated in 1983, having obtained the qualification of Master of Laws.

Since 1983, she has dedicated all her professional life to working in the Ministry of Social Security and Labour until she turned to politics and became a Vice Minister of Social Security and Labour in 1996. In 2000 she has been appointed as Minister for Social Security and Labour and she remained in the post until 2008.

In 2009 and in 2014 she has been elected to the European Parliament, as the representative of the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania. In the European Parliament, she belongs to the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats and she is or has been a full member of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee, the Women Rights and Gender Equality Committee and a substitute member of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, the Intergroup on Disability and Children Rights and Delegations to Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, as well as member of the delegation to South East Asia. Since the European Parliament elections in 2014, she is a Vice-Chair of the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee.

In 2004 has been bestowed with the Cross of Commander of the Order for Merits to Lithuania.