Rasa Juknevičienė (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Urbonaitė, born 26 January 1958) is a

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

n politician and

paediatrician Pediatrics (American English) also spelled paediatrics (British English), is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, pediatrics covers many of their yout ...

, who has been serving as a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

since

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

. She served as Minister of Defense of Lithuania since 2008 to 2012. She is a member of center right

Homeland Union The Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats (, TS–LKD), also colloquially known as the Conservatives (), is a centre-right political party in Lithuania. It has 18,000 members and 28 of 141 seats in the Seimas. Its current leader ...

Early life and education

Juknevičienė is a graduate of the

Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (, LSMU) is a medical school in Kaunas, Lithuania. The present-day Lithuanian University of Health Sciences is a consolidation of two institutions of higher education, Kaunas University of Medicine and th ...

(LSMU) and worked as a doctor until 1992.

Political career

Career in national politics

With interruptions, Juknevičienė was a member of the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas) from 1996 until 2019. During her time in parliament, she held positions as Deputy Chair of the Committee on National Security and Defense; and Head of the Seimas Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Juknevičienė has been member of the Lithuanian delegation to the

NATO Parliamentary Assembly The NATO Parliamentary Assembly serves as the consultative interparliamentary organisation for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It consists of delegates from the parliaments of the 32 NATO member countries as well as from associate ...

since 1999. She was

rapporteur A rapporteur is a person who is appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings. The term is a French-derived word. For example, Dick Marty was appointed ''rapporteur'' by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Eur ...

of the Sub-Committee on NATO Partnerships from 2007 to 2008. She served as the Assembly's vice-president from 2016 until 2018, when she became president.

Member of the European Parliament, 2019–present

Since the

2019 European Parliament election The 2019 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 23 and 26 May 2019. It was the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) we ...

, Juknevičienė has been serving on the Parliament's

Committee on Development The Committee on Development (Commission du développement, DEVE) is a committee of the European Parliament responsible for promoting, implementing and monitoring the development and cooperation policy of the European Union, notably talks with deve ...

. In 2021, she became vice-chair of the Group of the

European People's Party The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian democracy, Christian democratic, liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative, and conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other p ...

in the European Parliament. In addition to her committee assignments, Juknevičienė is part of the European Parliament Intergroup on Artificial Intelligence and Digital and the

MEPs Against Cancer MEPs Against Cancer is a group of 23 Members of the European Parliament who aim to "promote action on cancer as an EU priority and harness European health policy to that end" and to encourage every country to develop a national plan for combatin ...

group. In 2024, Juknevičienė was awarded the Order of Friendship by the Chechen government in exile for her support for Chechnya.

Other activities

European Council on Foreign Relations The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) is a pan-European think tank with offices in seven European capitals. Launched in October 2007, it conducts research on European foreign and security policy and provides a meeting space for decis ...

(ECFR), MemberMembers

. * Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), Member of the Advisory Council (since 2014) * Facebook.

References

Mąstanti globaliai, veikianti konkrečiai
Ona VOVERIENĖ. Retrieved 2009-10-11 1958 births Living people Female defence ministers Women members of the Seimas Ministers of defence of Lithuania Women government ministers of Lithuania 21st-century Lithuanian women politicians MEPs for Lithuania 2019–2024 Women MEPs for Lithuania Members of the Seimas MEPs for Lithuania 2024–2029 {{Lithuania-politician-stub