Charlemagne Prize Laureate 2013 Dalia Grybauskaitė

Biography

Born on 1 March 1956 in Vilnius.
She studied political economy at Leningrad University. In 1988, she defended her Ph. D. thesis at Moscow Academy of Public Sciences.

In 1991, she became a program director in Prime Minister’s office. The same year, she was appointed Director of the European Department at the Ministry of International Economic Relations.

In 1993, she served as Director of the Economic Relations Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A year later she was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Lithuanian Mission to the EU.

From 1996-1999, Dalia Grybauskaitė acted as Minister Plenipotentiary at the Lithuanian Embassy in the USA.
She served as deputy finance minister from 1999 to 2000, deputy foreign minister from 2000 to 2001, and finance minister from 2001 to 2004.

In 2004, she was appointed EU commissioner responsible for financial programming and budget.
In the first round of voting on May 17, 2009, she was elected President of the Republic of Lithuania.