# Mindaugas Sinkevičius

# Mindaugas Sinkevičius

Mindaugas Sinkevičius (born 20 June 1984 in Jonava) is a Lithuanian politician of the [Social Democratic Party of Lithuania](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-lithuania) and the country’s prime minister. The Seimas confirmed President Gitanas Nausėda’s nomination on 30 June 2026 by 80 votes to 2, with 28 abstentions, after Inga Ruginienė resigned when the [Social Democrats](/organizations/social-democrats) ended their cooperation with Nemunas Dawn and reassembled a majority reported to hold 75 of 141 seats. His cabinet’s programme was approved on 14 July 2026 by 72 votes to 29, with four abstentions, and the government was sworn in the same day. He has chaired the Social Democrats since his election on 1 May 2026, having been acting chairman from 31 July 2025.

His political career was built in Jonava District Municipality, in central Lithuania. Elected to the municipal council in 2007, he was deputy mayor in 2008–2009 and mayor in 2011–2016, from 2019 until September 2024, and again from March 2025 until 13 July 2026. In 2016, when the Social Democrats joined a coalition with the [Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union](/organizations/lithuanian-farmers-and-greens-union), he became minister of the economy in the cabinet of Saulius Skvernelis. He resigned within a year after the party decided to leave that coalition, and later said the decision was political rather than the result of mistakes in office. Between the ministry and his return to the mayoralty he spent about 18 months as director of the municipal company Jonavos vandenys, and in 2019 he also became president of the Association of Lithuanian Municipalities.

He completed a bachelor’s degree in management and business administration at [Vilnius University](/organizations/vilnius-university) in 2007, a part-time bachelor of laws at Mykolas Romeris University in 2008, and a master’s degree in marketing and management at ISM University of Management and Economics in 2009. In 2015 he received a doctorate in social sciences from ISM for a dissertation, prepared in English between 2010 and 2015, titled *Alcohol Consumption in the Context of Conflicting Societal and Personal Factors* (*Alkoholio vartojimas prieštaringų visuomeninių ir asmeninių veiksnių kontekste*).

In 2023 he was charged with causing €1,487 in damage to the Jonava administration by using council-activity funds for personal expenses, including two television sets and communications services. The Kaunas Regional Court convicted him of abuse of office, document forgery and misappropriation, fined him €12,500 and banned him from public office for three years; the Court of Appeal upheld that judgment, and the Central Electoral Commission then removed his mayoral mandate. On 5 March 2025 the Supreme Court of Lithuania terminated the case, the lower convictions were quashed, and the electoral commission restored the mandate. In June 2025 the Chief Official Ethics Commission nonetheless found that he had conflated public and private interests. On 26 October 2026 an ISM ethics commission identified five cases of plagiarism and two further instances of improper text use in the 2015 dissertation, gave him six months to submit corrections once the university set the requirements, and did not recommend immediate revocation of the degree.

## Early life and education

### Family and upbringing

Mindaugas Sinkevičius was born on 20 June 1984 in Jonava, in central Lithuania. He is the son of the politician Rimantas Sinkevičius and of Ligita Sinkevičienė, described in a CIDOB biography as an engineer and environmental official. Rimantas Sinkevičius was born in 1952 in Jusiškis, in the Anykščiai district. From 1980 to 2000 he worked in Jonava’s nitrogen industry, at the production association Azotas and then at Achema, before sitting in the Seimas and holding ministerial office. Published biographical notes say that Mindaugas Sinkevičius left Jonava Senamiestis Gymnasium for university, and the Jonava public library’s local-history entry dates that graduation to 2003.

### University studies

In 2007 he received a bachelor’s degree in management and business administration from the Faculty of Economics of Vilnius University. In 2008 he completed a part-time bachelor of laws at Mykolas Romeris University. In 2009 he obtained a master’s degree in marketing and management from ISM University of Management and Economics.

During his studies he took part in the Lithuanian Social Democratic Youth Union, the Vilnius youth-organisation union Apskritas stalas, and the Lithuanian Falcons Union. In September 2007, aged 23, already a Vilnius graduate and then studying for a master’s in international management and marketing at ISM, he stood for president of the Lithuanian Youth Council (LiJOT). Apskritas stalas, the Falcons and the Social Democratic youth backed him. The council then brought together 55 national and regional youth organisations, and 39 of them had a vote. An assembly in Vilnius on 22–23 September split evenly between him and Šarūnas Frolenko. At a repeat vote on 27 October, Frolenko won, 34 votes to 27; by then Sinkevičius was also a member of the Jonava district council and was identified in the campaign as a social democrat. The *Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija* records him as a vice-president of LiJOT from 2007 to 2009.

### Doctoral dissertation

From 2010 to 2015 he prepared a doctoral dissertation in English at ISM, titled *Alcohol Consumption in the Context of Conflicting Societal and Personal Factors* (*Alkoholio vartojimas prieštaringų visuomeninių ir asmeninių veiksnių kontekste*). He defended it on 11 September 2015. The degree was a doctorate in the social sciences, and contemporary reporting described him as the 34th person to receive a doctorate from ISM.

The dissertation examines personal and social factors affecting adults’ intention to consume alcohol. It sets out a behavioural model of that intention and of how the factors relate to one another, and it reports a quantitative study whose structural-equation analysis identified personal and social factors with a strong association with those intentions. The same account of the research says that particular personal and social factors could produce either similar or opposing behaviour, and that the thesis included recommendations on changing adults’ drinking. The supervisor was Vilnius University professor Sigitas Urbonavičius; the defence board was chaired by ISM professor Ilona Bučiūnienė.

## Municipal career in Jonava

### Council and deputy mayor

Sinkevičius joined the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania (LSDP) in 2004. In 2007 he was elected to the Jonava District Municipality council, where he sat until 2016, and from 2013 he chaired the party's Jonava branch. The municipality's biography states that in the 2007–2011 term he led the Social Democratic group and chaired the Control Committee and the Economy, Finance and Business Development Committee.

In April 2008 that council, led by mayor Bronislovas Liutkus of the Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union, elected the 23-year-old student deputy mayor by 16 votes to eight, with one abstention. Opposition councillors objected to his age and to the secret ballot, saying some papers appeared to have been marked beforehand. He was assigned the district's image, education and social services, territorial planning, children's rights and relations with trade unions, at a salary of 4,300 litai, and was later described as the country's youngest deputy mayor. The municipal biography says the salaried post ran in 2008–2009 and that in 2010–2011 he continued the duties unpaid, on a public basis; the *Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija* records the office as 2008–2009. From 2009 to 2011 he also worked at the company Projektų centras.

### Election as mayor

Mayors were still chosen by councils. On 7 April 2011 the first sitting of the new 27-member council elected Sinkevičius, then 26, with 19 votes in favour and eight against, replacing Liutkus. In the February election the LSDP had won six seats; the Peasant Popular Union and the Labour Party four each; the [Liberals' Movement](/organizations/liberals-movement), Order and Justice and the [Homeland Union](/organizations/homeland-union) three each; and the Liberal and Centre Union and the Socialist People's Front two each. Remigijus Osauskas, later leader of the council opposition, said older members had doubted whether someone of that age could run the district, but that by the end of the term experienced local politicians thought he had done so.

The local economy was dominated by the nitrogen-fertilizer producer Achema. In August 2013 the municipality wanted an industrial park on up to 200 hectares reserved for a pulp mill, but Sinkevičius wrote to the Ministry of Economy that the council could not adopt the park or start planning until the land was removed from the measures implementing Lithuania's master plan. Before the 2015 election he said the district should avoid Panevėžys's experience after the Ekranas bankruptcy, when about 6,000 people lost their jobs, and that a plan for an industrial area near Rukla had been dropped while the Kaunas free economic zone competed for investment.

### First direct mayoral term

On 1 March 2015, in Lithuania's first direct mayoral elections, Sinkevičius won in the first round with 71.20 percent of the vote; Osauskas of [the Liberals](/organizations/the-liberals)' Movement was second with 8.60 percent. *15min* noted that he is the son of Rimantas Sinkevičius, then minister of transport. The LSDP list took 54.17 percent and 14 council seats, up from six in 2011; *Jonavos žinios* called it the first time one list had won more than half the district vote. A November 2016 profile counted 15 Social Democrats on the 25-member council, including the directly elected mayor.

In June 2015 the Kaunas Regional Development Council elected him chairman unanimously, with Kaunas deputy mayor Povilas Mačiulis as his deputy, and set up a group to coordinate projects paid for by European Union structural funds. From 2015 he was also an LSDP deputy chairman, and the municipality's October 2016 biography listed him as a member of the bureau of the European Committee of the Regions. Osauskas later told BNS that Sinkevičius had led the city in the first term but was less active locally in the second, with a Social Democratic majority and more time spent on national politics, though Osauskas said he had no major complaint about him as a resident. That account said public spaces had been refurbished, and cited a Kaunas regional development agency figure that the proposed park was to attract nearly €150 million, create more than 1,300 jobs and employ over 670 unemployed people, when official unemployment in the district was 8.5 percent.

On 7 December 2016 the Central Electoral Commission ended his council mandate and directly elected mayoralty at his request, with 12 December his last day and the powers ceasing on 13 December, the day the new government was due to be sworn in. He left to become minister of the economy in the cabinet of Saulius Skvernelis. The commission said the council would choose an acting mayor from its members until a fresh direct election, which could not be later than 13 June 2017.

## Minister of the Economy

### Appointment

Mindaugas Sinkevičius, of the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania (LSDP), was Minister of the Economy in Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis’s cabinet from 13 December 2016 to 13 October 2017. On 13 December the Seimas approved the coalition programme “Darni Lietuva” by 86 votes to three, with 40 abstentions, and the ministers were to be sworn in that afternoon. He was one of three LSDP nominees; most other posts went to the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union (LVŽS). After about five and a half years as mayor of Jonava District, he described the move as leaving a calm harbour, with investment and jobs the main task.

The next day he was reported at work in the ministry. He stated two aims, not results: raising innovation spending from under 1 per cent of gross domestic product toward about 2 per cent, with more of it from business, and lifting state-owned enterprises’ return on capital from about 4 per cent toward 10 per cent.

### Policy and tenure

In January 2017 he signed the procedure for a “startup visa”. Amendments to the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens, in force that year, let foreigners introducing new technologies or other significant innovations apply without fixed capital or staffing tests. Versli Lietuva judged the activity, qualifications, financing and business plan, advised by a commission of innovation-agency, startup and venture-capital representatives.

On 28 June the cabinet, on his proposal, capped sponsorship by state-owned enterprises from 2018 at 3 per cent of annual net profit and €500,000, at most €300,000 to one recipient, and up to €30,000 a year for loss-making firms with reserves. Transport minister Rokas Masiulis opposed the euro ceiling; Skvernelis and Sinkevičius kept it. The step belonged to Lithuania’s OECD accession, invited in 2015 and aimed at 2018. In July the ministry told an OECD mission that ownership coordination had moved on 1 July from the State Property Bank to the Monitoring and Forecasts Agency, and that earlier decisions, drafted by the ministry, had barred politicians from boards and required a majority of independently chosen members. The mission said forestry and road-enterprise reforms were still unfinished.

The Labour Code was not his bill. On 20 April, as a candidate for the LSDP leadership, he said Social Democrats would keep 19 points already signed in the Tripartite Council rather than reopen them in the Seimas; the cabinet had approved the amendments the day before, with the code due on 1 July. At the Hannover Messe in late April he met [Continental AG](/organizations/continental-ag), then choosing between Lithuania and another European Union country. On 30 October, after he had left, the company announced a €95 million plant in Kaunas District with about 1,000 jobs.

### Ethics finding on hunting

An ethics inquiry did not remove him. On 10 March 2017 Homeland Union members Ingrida Šimonytė and Agnė Bilotaitė asked the Chief Official Ethics Commission (VTEK) and the Seimas Anti-Corruption Commission whether he and his father, former transport minister Rimantas Sinkevičius, had mixed public and private interests after reports of commercial hunts with businesspeople.

On 28 June VTEK found both had breached the Law on the Adjustment of Public and Private Interests by not declaring interests properly and on time. Rimantas had been in Jonava’s Santaka hunting club since 1990 and in “Lokys” since 2009, and had declared neither; Mindaugas had been in Santaka since 2002 and in “Lokys” since 2014, and declared them only during the inquiry. Over three years Rimantas attended 20 commercial hunts and Mindaugas nine, run by the Panevėžys forest enterprise. VTEK could not conclude that either had left a hunt unpaid or taken a declarable gift; most cases had documents or organisers’ statements, and that part of the case was closed. The commission asked the environment minister to make each participant’s payment transparent.

Sinkevičius called the breach minor and corrected. LVŽS leader Ramūnas Karbauskis said it did not justify a no-confidence vote, and LSDP chairman Gintautas Paluckas said Sinkevičius could stay. [Gabrielius Landsbergis](/people/gabrielius-landsbergis) called for resignation or dismissal. On 29 June Skvernelis refused. He said the period reviewed was unrelated to ministerial decisions, and that findings about mayoral acts or unpaid sums would have differed; undeclared membership of a civic organisation was largely formal, though a serious reputational signal. Sinkevičius did not resign over the finding.

### Resignation

He left because the party left the coalition. On 23 September 2017 the LSDP council ended the agreement with the LVŽS: of 195 members present, 140 voted to leave, 46 against and nine abstained. The dispute included the 11 July start, backed by Homeland Union votes, of a state-forest reform the Social Democrats opposed; 44 of 60 branches had favoured withdrawal. Paluckas said Sinkevičius would resign. Foreign minister Linas Linkevičius stayed and left the party; non-partisan justice minister Milda Vainiutė, also an LSDP nominee, was not bound by the council. Skvernelis had said the three nominees could remain, and Karbauskis said the LVŽS would not replace them.

On 25 September Sinkevičius resigned. He said he disagreed with leaving, but had to follow the party that had delegated him, and should not serve in a government the Social Democrats had quit. On 28 September President [Dalia Grybauskaitė](/people/dalia-grybauskaite), on the prime minister’s submission, accepted the resignation from 13 October 2017. The post was vacant until 27 November, when she appointed Virginijus Sinkevičius, a 27-year-old LVŽS member of the Seimas and chair of its Economics Committee. The two are not related. Reports noted that Mindaugas Sinkevičius had opposed the exit but had obeyed the council.

## Return to local government

### Jonava water utility

After leaving the Ministry of the Economy in October 2017, Social Democratic Party of Lithuania politician Mindaugas Sinkevičius won a competition to direct UAB Jonavos vandenys, the water and wastewater company of Jonava District Municipality. On 15 November he was the only one of three shortlisted candidates to attend the interview. He said he expected to start on 1 December; he had earlier sat on the supervisory board.

On 23 November 2017 the Chief Official Ethics Commission (Vyriausioji tarnybinės etikos komisija, VTEK) warned that a 1 December start could breach the one-year cooling-off rule. He had left the mayoralty on 12 December 2016, and the law bars a former official, for a year, from managing a company he had supervised. VTEK held that Jonavos vandenys was covered and asked the supervisory board and mayor Eugenijus Sabutis to report their decision. Sinkevičius told BNS there was no contract for 1 December, only a proposal from the board chair, and that he had applied to start on 15 December. He directed the utility for about a year and a half, until the 2019 elections.

### Mayoral terms from 2019

In the direct mayoral election of 3 March 2019 he was returned in the first round with 57.36 percent of the vote. At the council sitting on 11 April he was already mayor and announced a coalition of Social Democrats, the Social Democratic Labour Party and the Liberals' Movement, 16 of 25 councillors, of whom 12 were Social Democrats.

On 5 March 2023 he was re-elected in the first round. *Delfi*, reporting the count, put his share at 72.28 percent of the vote. The receipts case later interrupted the mandate. On 27 September 2024 the council assigned the duties to his father, Rimantas Sinkevičius, a Social Democratic councillor and former minister, until a new mayor was chosen. After the Supreme Court of Lithuania discontinued the case, the Central Electoral Commission restored the mandate. Sinkevičius returned to work on 10 March 2025, and the Seimas that day cancelled a by-election set for 16 March. The commission cancelled the mandate again on 9 July 2026, after President Gitanas Nausėda designated him prime minister, with that office expected from 14 July. Less than a year remained before the February–March 2027 local elections, so no by-election was called.

### Association of Lithuanian Municipalities

On 29 May 2019 the Association of Lithuanian Municipalities (Lietuvos savivaldybių asociacija, LSA), which represents all 60 municipalities in Lithuania, elected him president at its 25th congress in Vilnius. He was the only nominee. Of 204 delegates, 182 registered, and in an open vote all but one, who abstained, supported him. He succeeded Ričardas Malinauskas, mayor of Druskininkai, who had led the association since 2003 and did not stand again. The term is four years.

That congress set four priorities: municipal financial autonomy, fewer borrowing limits, a right to dispose of state land, and balanced regional growth. On 31 May 2023, with 186 delegates from every municipality, he was elected to a second term. He cited easier borrowing under the constitutional law on the Fiscal Compact and the transfer of urban state land to municipalities. The congress said about €1.6 billion of European Union support in the 2022–2030 Regional Development Programme still could not be spent because central delays blocked prepared projects. He said the sum existed "only on slides, not in projects actually carried out", and that ministries had not prepared half the funding guidelines.

The fifth Regional Forum, on 10 November 2023, was held by Nausėda with the Interior Ministry and the LSA. Sinkevičius called regional policy stalled: the legal framework existed, but decisions were still taken in ministries. He said no investment project had started late in the third year of the EU financial period, and that the regional allocation had been cut by €187 million, from €1.810 billion in statute to €1.623 billion in the programme. He included education, health, social services and transport in that policy.

On 14 December 2023 the board suspended his powers as president, at his request, after prosecutors had named him a suspect on 30 November in the receipts investigation. He did not attend. Vice-president Audrius Klišonis, mayor of Plungė, was asked to act in the office until the suspicions were tested. The case itself is treated separately.

## Receipts case

The case followed the *čekiukų* (“receipts”) controversy over councillors’ allowances for office and communications costs. In Jonava it began after the journalist Andrius Tapinas reviewed expense reports under the “Skaidrinam” project, including two television sets and telephone bills linked to Mindaugas Sinkevičius.

### Charges

On 30 November 2023 prosecutors named Sinkevičius, then mayor of Jonava District Municipality, as a suspect in the use, during 2019–2023, of council funds for personal property and his wife’s mobile service, and in documents that may have been forged. The sum was put at more than €1,500. The courts later recorded 16 advance reports, totalling €1,487.62, for a number used by his wife and for his own needs, internet television and television instalments, none of it part of his duties.

He said a suspicion was not a judgment, that he had not broken the rules, and that he had repaid the money and apologised. The same day he suspended his activity in the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania and asked the Association of Lithuanian Municipalities to suspend him as president; it later did so. Before trial he transferred €4,015 to the municipal budget. Prosecutor Darius Valkavičius sought a €30,000 fine and a five-year ban on public office.

### Conviction and removal from office

On 27 May 2024 the Kaunas Regional Court, Judge Laima Šeputienė presiding, held that guilt was fully proved. It convicted him of abuse of office, forgery or use of a forged document, and misappropriation — Articles 228(2), 300(1) and 183(1) of the Criminal Code — for personal use of council funds, a loss of nearly €1,500, and non-pecuniary harm to confidence in the municipality. It rejected his account that he, not his wife, used the telephone, because the number was registered as hers, and rejected an oversight explanation for two “Samsung” sets, entered on separate invoices. The sentence was a €12,500 fine, described as near the minimum, and a three-year ban on public office. He denied the findings, put the sum at about €1,400, and said he would appeal and stay in office while the judgment was not final.

On 19 September 2024 the Court of Appeal of Lithuania, with Evaldas Pašilis presiding, dismissed the appeal. It held that his wife was the main user of the line and that he had knowingly misled staff for more than four years. The judgment took effect at once. On 20 September the Central Electoral Commission unanimously ended the mandate and removed him from the Social Democratic Seimas list. It could be challenged in the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania within three days, and an early election was required. On 27 September the council assigned the duties to his father, Rimantas Sinkevičius, a councillor and former minister, by 18 votes to three with two abstentions, until a new mayor was elected. By the cassation ruling the acting mayor was Povilas Beišys.

### Supreme Court decision

On 5 March 2025 the Supreme Court of Lithuania quashed both judgments and terminated the case. It held that the lower courts had misapplied criminal law and had no basis to convict him under Articles 228(2), 183(1) and 300(1). On abuse of office, they had misread “substantial damage”. The breaches concerned conduct and conflict-of-interest rules that already carried disciplinary liability. Non-pecuniary harm was measured by his roles as mayor and as president of the Association of Municipalities, although the charge concerned him only as a councillor. An existing procedure for refusing and recovering expenses had not been used.

€1,487.62 over four years was far below the harm cassation practice usually treats as substantial, generally more than 250 minimum living standards (MGL), or €12,500. The panel held that the conduct stayed within a disciplinary offence and that substantial non-pecuniary damage was not shown. Misappropriation and forgery were not treated as crimes: controls could have stopped the payments, civil remedies could have recovered them, and the money had already been returned. It noted that on 13 June 2023 the Seimas had replaced the allowances with pay for council work. The ruling was final. Judges Artūras Pažarskis and Gabrielė Juodkaitė-Granskienė said the panel had decided one set of facts, not every receipts case, and that precedent is built case by case. The lack of criminal guilt, she said, did not exclude other liability, a matter for the Chief Official Ethics Commission.

### Reinstatement and ethics ruling

Chair Lina Petronienė first said he could not return: the mandate was annulled, and the 16 March election deadline had passed. On 6 March, at his request, the commission unanimously revoked its decision of 20 September 2024 and asked the Seimas to cancel the election. The Electoral Code set out no restoration procedure. Petronienė said the basis for annulment had gone, that the mandate would return when the decision appeared in the Register of Legal Acts that evening, and that without his application the earlier decision would have stood. The council still had to recall Beišys. On 10 March 2025 the Seimas cancelled the election by 92 votes to one, with 15 abstentions, and ordered candidates repaid. Sinkevičius returned to the mayor’s office that day and said he had restored the membership suspended on 30 November 2023.

He paid the €12,500 fine in late October 2024, while the appeal was pending. On 5 April 2025 the State Tax Inspectorate returned it. Lawyer Arūnas Petrauskas said removal of the conviction left no basis for the payment; the inspectorate treated it as a tax overpayment.

On 11 June 2025 the Chief Official Ethics Commission unanimously found that he had mixed public and private interests by buying two television sets and other communications services with council funds. Limited to three years, it assessed conduct from 14 March 2022, after a prosecution referral once the criminal case ended. Chairman Gediminas Sakalauskas said the only consequence, because Sinkevičius already held the highest municipal post, was a one-year bar on promotion or a higher appointment there or in a subordinate body. Sinkevičius had called the “Telia Lietuva” payments unintentional. The finding could be appealed.

## Social Democratic Party leadership

### Offices before 2025

Mindaugas Sinkevičius has belonged to the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania (Lietuvos socialdemokratų partija, LSDP) since 2004. He has chaired the party's Jonava district branch since 2013 and has been a deputy chairman of the national party since 2015. His membership was suspended from November 2023 to March 2025 while a judicial investigation was under way.

### Acting chair

The LSDP was the largest party after the [2024 Lithuanian parliamentary election](/facts/2024-lithuanian-parliamentary-election), winning 52 seats in the 141-member Seimas. Vilija Blinkevičiūtė led the party into that election but declined to become prime minister. Gintautas Paluckas, already head of government, was confirmed as party chairman at a congress in Vilnius on 17 May 2025, with 79 percent of the vote. The same day the party council named Sinkevičius, whose membership had been restored that spring, as Paluckas's first deputy chairman.

On 31 July 2025 Paluckas resigned as prime minister and as LSDP chairman, and the party board accepted the resignation. The statute assigned the acting chairmanship to the first deputy, so Sinkevičius took it that day. He said the rules would let an acting chair serve until the leadership election then set for May 2027, unless the party decided otherwise, and that he would carry that responsibility if no new vote was called. The council later moved the election to the May 2026 congress. A party spokesman called the change technical and traced it to a dispute over whether the incumbent counted as formally acting.

### Election as chair

On 1 May 2026 delegates met at the Jonava sports arena for a congress that also marked the LSDP's 130th anniversary. Sinkevičius had been nominated by 52 of the party's 60 branches. He was the only name on the ballot after Nerijus Cesiulis, the mayor of Alytus and the nominee of a single branch, withdrew before the vote. Other politicians had already dropped out, and the contest had been expected to be between the two mayors. Cesiulis said his own branch had not put him forward and that he had asked it not to, adding that elections are won well before election day.

Sinkevičius received 503 votes from 535 participants. The congress lengthened the chairman's term from two years to four and tied it to the parliamentary cycle, so he is to lead the party until May 2029, when a congress is due after the next Seimas election. Cesiulis opposed the longer term, arguing that the leadership should face a confidence vote more often.

Addressing the congress, Sinkevičius said he understood the branch nominations as carrying large expectations, and that the public was tired of argument about the coalition's future. He said voters cared more about rising prices, the cost of living, social inequality and poverty than about political quarrels. He left a final decision on continued cooperation with Remigijus Žemaitaitis's Nemunas Dawn to a party-council meeting within about a month, and he did not answer directly, saying the situation was not unambiguously easy. Cesiulis, by contrast, said the Social Democrats had no common path with Nemunas Dawn.

Robertas Duchnevičius, mayor of Vilnius District, was named first deputy chairman. The other deputies were Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė, Seimas group leader Orinta Leiputė, Indrė Kižienė, Raminta Popovienė, Jūratė Zailskienė, Violeta Turauskaitė, Juozas Olekas, Robertas Kaunas, Juras Taminskas, Martynas Katelynas and Saulius Margis. The congress also confirmed former leader and member of the [European Parliament](/organizations/european-parliament) Vilija Blinkevičiūtė as an honorary chair.

## Premiership

### Nomination and confirmation

Sinkevičius became prime minister of Lithuania in July 2026, heading the 21st government and the third cabinet of the Fourteenth Seimas, after the Paluckas Cabinet and that of Inga Ruginienė. On 18 June parliamentary leaders of the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania (LSDP), the Democrats “For Lithuania” and the joint Farmers and Christian Families group signed a coalition agreement naming LSDP chairman Sinkevičius to form the government. The Social Democrats had ended cooperation with Nemunas Dawn earlier that month. On 23 June Ruginienė’s cabinet resolved unanimously to resign and returned its powers to President Gitanas Nausėda, who left it in place as a caretaker.

Nausėda submitted Sinkevičius’s candidacy to the Seimas on the evening of 25 June, and said he expected defence spending of at least 5 percent of GDP, continued support for Ukraine, preparation for Lithuania’s [presidency of the Council of the European Union](/organizations/presidency-of-the-council-of-the-european-union), a response to demographic decline, regional investment, and progress on energy independence and growth. On 30 June the Seimas approved the nomination by 80 votes to 2, with 28 abstentions, and a presidential decree the same day appointed him prime minister. He had 15 days to present a cabinet, agreed with the president, and a programme.

The programme was registered on 3 July, before Nausėda’s decree of 7 July approving the ministers. Opposition parties said that order conflicted with the Constitution and that they would apply to the [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court) of Lithuania; Social Democratic group leader Orinta Leiputė said the legally relevant date was 7 July. On 14 July, in an extended spring session, the Seimas approved the programme by 72 votes to 29, with four abstentions, and the ministers took the oath the same day. Sinkevičius had left the Jonava district mayoralty on 13 July. The council elected Valdas Majauskas, the former administration director, acting mayor by 22 votes, with one abstention; no by-election was held because less than a year remained before the February–March 2027 local elections.

### Coalition and cabinet

BNS reported that the majority — the Social Democrats, the Democrats “For Lithuania”, and one faction combining the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union with the [Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania – Christian Families Alliance](/organizations/electoral-action-of-poles-in-lithuania-christian-families-alliance) — held 75 seats in the 141-member Seimas. The agreement gave the Democrats energy, health and agriculture, and the Farmers and Polish–Christian Families group justice and economy and innovation, with the other nine ministries staying with the Social Democrats. An annex recorded that the Farmers’ group would not support civil partnerships or same-sex marriage.

Sworn in with the prime minister were Taurimas Valys (finance), Juras Taminskas (transport and communications), Raminta Popovienė (education, science and sport), Lukas Alsys (culture), Martynas Katelynas (interior), Rita Tamašunienė (justice), Edvinas Grikšas (economy and innovation), Inga Ruginienė (social security and labour, returning to her previous portfolio), Robertas Kaunas (national defence), Ieva Andriulaitytė (environment), Linas Kukuraitis (health), Kęstutis Mažeika (agriculture), Lukas Savickas (energy) and Kęstutis Budrys ([foreign affairs](/organizations/foreign-affairs)). By late October the Seimas faction roll listed 52 Social Democrats, 13 Democrats “For Lithuania” and nine members of the Farmers, Greens and Christian Families Union faction.

### Programme and first months

Sinkevičius told the Seimas that growth should raise individual prosperity and that competitiveness began with investment in people, knowledge and innovation. The programme treated Russia’s war against Ukraine, demography and living costs among the main challenges, and promised defence funding in line with military recommendations — air defence, anti-drone protection and the Baltic defence line — plus continued support for Ukraine and diplomatic relations with China restored to a level typical of other EU states. Opposition speakers criticised a softer tone toward [Alexander Lukashenko](/people/alexander-lukashenko) and the dropping of a pledge to keep Russia and Belarus isolated. It also promised higher pensions, shorter medical waiting lists, free primary-school meals, help for first homes, and a pause in diesel-excise rises.

At the first cabinet meeting, on 15 July, Sinkevičius called the prime ministers of Estonia and Latvia, [Kristen Michal](/people/kristen-michal) and [Andris Kulbergs](/people/andris-kulbergs), and met Latvian president [Edgars Rinkēvičs](/people/edgars-rinkevics) on security, Ukraine, Rail Baltica and drones. On 13 September he left for a two-day visit to Ukraine, with meetings planned with [President Volodymyr Zelenskyy](/people/volodymyr-zelenskyy), Prime Minister Serhijus Koreckis and Rada speaker [Ruslan Stefanchuk](/people/ruslan-stefanchuk), focused on winter needs and defence industry and on Lithuania’s pledge of at least 0.25 percent of GDP a year in military aid.

In a Bloomberg interview reported on 30 September he said Lithuania wanted a permanent United States troop presence and was ready to pay for it, after discussing the idea with US envoy for Minsk John Coale. About 1,000 US soldiers and Abrams tanks were due at the end of October for a nine-month rotation. The 2027 budget draft, approved in mid-October, set defence at more than €4.8 billion, or 5 percent of forecast GDP — about €35 million more than 2026, when the share was 5.38 percent — toward a division and a German brigade. It projected a deficit of 3.8 percent of GDP, above the EU’s 3 percent limit, and debt of 48.2 percent of GDP; Sinkevičius tied most of the gap to defence and indexed benefits, including a 10.4 percent rise in the average pension, to €825. On 28 October Virginijus Sinkevičius, leader of the Democrats “For Lithuania”, said his party would not vote for that draft without a fuller plan to cut the deficit. At the 100-day mark, LRT reported that coalition partners called the start adequate, while opposition politicians credited his willingness to cooperate but doubted the goals would be met, and treated the budget as the test. On 30 October an ISM University of Management and Economics commission found plagiarism in his doctoral thesis and gave him six months to correct it.

## Doctoral thesis review

### Complaints and inquiry

In late October 2026 the Ethics Commission of ISM University of Management and Economics finished an inquiry into Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius’s 2015 doctoral dissertation, written in English as *Alcohol Consumption in the Context of Conflicting Societal and Personal Factors* (*Alkoholio vartojimas prieštaringų visuomeninių ir asmeninių veiksnių kontekste*).

Public questions began in July 2026. *Delfi* reported passages matching a 2012 post on Sanjay Basu’s EpiAnalysis blog, material from a World Health Organization report, and nearly a page resembling an article by American researchers. The dissertation entered the national eLABa repository on 16 July, after Sinkevičius consented to publication. He said he had written it himself and expected any inquiry to end in his favour.

The Office of the Ombudsperson for Academic Ethics and Procedures forwarded three complaints; the university said one was accepted at the end of July and two in September, and that the commission consulted international experts in academic integrity. BNS reported that the first was taken up in August and that the deadline was then extended to 30 October. After five episodes named by one complainant were confirmed, the commission ran the full text through Turnitin and reviewed 55 overlaps it described as more significant or needing further assessment.

### Findings

The decision, dated 26 October and reported on 30 October, found five cases of plagiarism—verbatim or near-verbatim use of another person’s text without a proper source or quotation limits—and two further overlaps that it did not classify as plagiarism. One case was text written as if Sinkevičius had analysed alcohol consumption in Eastern Europe, which the commission said reproduced EpiAnalysis. Eight sources cited in the text were missing from the bibliography. It held that the breaches violated the academic-integrity principle in the university ethics code and the independence requirement in the doctoral regulations, and it found no procedural breach in the 2015 defence. In written explanations he accepted some overlaps and missing references but denied intentional appropriation. The commission treated that account as an interested party’s position.

### Corrections and response

It did not recommend immediate revocation. Given the scale of the problems and the fact that the doctoral requirements had been met, it called revocation disproportionate. The university said the same standards applied regardless of office. The rector was to have the dean of doctoral studies set, within 60 calendar days, requirements for a public correction list identifying the passages and sources, while the 2015 text remained the original. Sinkevičius then has six months from approval of those requirements to submit corrections, to be checked by the doctoral committee and published with the dissertation. Failure could lead the commission to recommend revocation proceedings. It also urged clearer publication of theses in eLABa. Rector Dalius Misiūnas said the inquiry had been thorough and impartial.

Sinkevičius said he did not contest the findings and would prepare the appendix. He noted that the doctoral committee still saw scientific value in the work and that he had analysed the data and drawn the conclusions himself. Homeland Union Seimas leader Laurynas Kasčiūnas urged correction without “dissertation wars” in politics. Liberals' Movement leader [Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen](/people/viktorija-cmilyte-nielsen) said the findings did the prime minister no honour but expected no serious political consequences, calling him the third Social Democratic prime minister in two years. Social Democrat Jurgita Šukevičienė, chair of the Seimas education committee, saw no case for political responsibility and called the issues mainly errors of citation. Vilnius University philosopher Nerija Putinaitė wrote that plagiarism in a defended dissertation should mean revocation. Ombudsperson Reda Cimmperman said universities decide such cases, and that a 2020 ombudsman decision upheld by the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania in 2023 had already recommended correcting plagiarism in a defended thesis. Her office did not investigate the ISM decision separately.

## Personal life

### Family

Mindaugas Sinkevičius is the son of Rimantas Sinkevičius, a long-serving member of the Seimas who was minister of transport from 2012 to 2016 and minister of the economy and innovation for part of 2020. The Seimas biography of Rimantas Sinkevičius names his wife as Ligita and their children as Mindaugas and a daughter, Rūta; an earlier version described Ligita as an engineer at the Jonava chemicals producer Achema and Rūta, then, as a law student at Vilnius University.

On 13 May 2017 he married Aistė Plūkaitė, then an interior designer and head of the Kaunas District Tourism and Business Information Centre, at the Church of St. Johns in Vilnius; she took the surname Sinkevičienė. Their son Jonas was born in the early hours of 25 July 2019, and a daughter, Ana, on 6 January 2021. In July 2026, as prime minister-designate, he said the family would stay in Jonava rather than move to the official residence at Turniškės, because one child was entering the first grade, the other pre-school, and his wife worked in Kaunas.

In August 2026 an LRT investigation reported that Aistė Sinkevičienė, at the Social Democrat-controlled Kaunas District Municipality since 2013, had been appointed head of its Public and International Relations Division without a competition and also held a half-time remote public-relations post at the municipal institution Raudondvaris Manor, where other people linked to the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania worked. LRT put her 2025 income above €73,500, about a quarter of it from the manor. Sinkevičius said part of the reporting was inaccurate and that he saw no offence, describing his wife as a qualified professional and “an excellent wife and the mother of our children.” President Gitanas Nausėda said she had a right to a career, noting that she had joined the municipality before the marriage. In October 2026 the Financial Crime Investigation Service declined to open pre-trial investigations into reports on hiring and the use of public funds at the manor; the Kaunas Regional Prosecutor’s Office upheld those decisions.

### Interests

Reported leisure has centred on endurance sport. In August 2019 he finished the Ironman Triathlon in Copenhagen—3.8 kilometres of swimming, 180 kilometres of cycling and a 42.195-kilometre run—in 11 hours and 42 minutes.

He has also described himself as a hunter. In a June 2026 interview he said he had belonged since the age of 18 to three clubs—Lokys and Santaka in Jonava, and Tauras—but doubted he had hunted in the previous three years, and that his usual companion on earlier hunts had been his father.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/mindaugas-sinkevicius