“Deal politics” has damaged political system, Lithuanian president says

In her words, information prepared by the State Security Department (VSD) for the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense, and later published, shows that the MG Baltic business group sought to take over the state’s control.

“This information shows that relations between politicians and business were developing in a very complex and often non-transparent way. In most cases, business sought only benefit, and in the specific MG case it also tried to take over control of the state,” the president said in an interview with the national radio LRT, aired on Wednesday.

Grybauskaitė stated that the merger of politics and business greatly affects the state’s development and that makes people poorer.

“The “deal politics” has damaged our political system and that needs to be fixed. And that is the responsibility of all political parties,” the president said, stressing the responsibility of both ruling and opposition parties.

As reported, the VSD told the Seimas committee in the report last week that MG Baltic had a long-term strategy, in pursuit of its interests, which can be viewed as destructive activity capable of destabilizing the state’s order and democratic political system and, thus, posing threat to national security.

MG Baltic representatives later called the report “a mixture of opinions and assumptions”.

MG Baltic has been charged in a political corruption case in Lithuania.