Eugenijus Gentvilas

His son Simonas Gentvilas – also a politician – has amassed substantial assets of his own. As of 2024, Simonas declared roughly €328,600 in assets (including real estate and other property) and had an unpaid loan of about €125,900, giving him a considerable net worth in the context of Lithuanian public officials.

Simonas Gentvilas, his son, is also a politician who became the Minister of the Environment of Lithuania in 2020.

Eugenijus Gentvilas was born on 14 March 1960 in Želvaičiai village, Telšiai District, Lithuania.

He is married to a woman named Aušra and has three adult children: son Simonas and daughters Rūta and Rasa.

He earned a Doctor of Natural Sciences degree (Ph.D.) in 1993.

He graduated from Vilnius State University (now Vilnius University) in 1983 with a diploma in geography.

During his tenure at the port authority, Gentvilas reported a bribery attempt by a contractor’s director – Pranciškus Jurgutis of “Klaipėdos hidrotechnika” – who had handed him a note with an offer of 200,000 Litas.

He served as the Director General of the Klaipėda State Seaport Authority from 2009 to 2012.

He was a lecturer at Klaipėda University from 1993 to 1997.

From 1983 to 1990 he worked as a research fellow at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (in Vilnius and Klaipėda divisions).

Gentvilas has been a member of Lithuania’s liberal political party since 1993 (initially the Lithuanian Liberal Union, now the Liberal Movement).

Gentvilas is a member of the Liberal Movement’s board (valdyba), reflecting his continued involvement in the party’s leadership structure.

He was the head (elder) of the Liberal Movement’s parliamentary group (Seimas faction leader) in 2016.

Beginning in 2012, he returned as a member of the Seimas (Parliament) and served in the 11th (2012–2016), 12th (2016–2020), and 13th (2020–2024) Seimas, and he is a member of the current 14th Seimas (2024–2028).

He was the first deputy chairman of the Liberal Movement from 2012 to 2017.

From 2007 to 2009, he continued in the ALDE group’s leadership as a member of the group’s Bureau in the European Parliament.

Gentvilas was a Member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2009.

In the European Parliament, Gentvilas served as a Vice-Chair (Deputy Chairman) of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group from 2004 until 2007.

After the Liberal Union merged into the Liberal and Centre Union, he became the first deputy chairman of the Liberal and Centre Union in 2003.

In 2001, he was appointed as the Minister of the Economy of the Republic of Lithuania.

He also briefly served as the Acting Prime Minister of Lithuania in 2001.

He served as the chairman of Lithuania’s liberal parties multiple times: leading the Lithuanian Liberal Union in 1996–1999 and 2001–2003, and later chairing the Liberal Movement in 2017–2019.

He served as the Mayor of Klaipėda City Municipality from 1997 to 2001 and was a member of the Klaipėda City Council in 1995–2004.

Gentvilas was a member of the Supreme Council – Reconstituent Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania from 1990 to 1992, which declared the country’s independence.

He is one of the signatories of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, having voted for the independence declaration on 11 March 1990.

As of November 2024, he is the Deputy Chair of the Seimas Committee on Human Rights.

During the 2020–2024 term, he was a member of the Seimas Committee on Human Rights and a member of the Anti-Corruption Commission.

In the 2016–2020 Seimas, he served as a member of the Committee on Economics and of the Commission for Energy and Sustainable Development.

From 2012 to 2016, he was a member of the Seimas Committee on Rural Affairs.

He was the Liberal Movement’s lead candidate in the 2024 European Parliament elections (holding the #1 spot on the party’s list), although the Liberal Movement ultimately did not win any seats in that election.

In 2024, he won a single-member seat in the Seimas, being elected in the Pašilaičiai constituency (No. 13) as a Liberal Movement candidate.

In the 2020 parliamentary election, Gentvilas was initially listed as number 2 on the Liberal Movement’s candidate list, but after voters’ preferential votes were tallied, he ended up ranked 6th on the list (still securing a seat via the party’s proportional representation).

In the 2012, 2016, and 2020 parliamentary elections, Gentvilas secured his Seimas seat via the Liberal Movement’s nationwide party list rather than by winning an individual single-member constituency. He was placed high on the party list in those elections, allowing him to enter the Seimas based on the party’s proportional vote share.

He returned to the Seimas in 2012, being elected as the third-ranked candidate on the Liberal Movement’s national list in that election.

He was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2004 on the Liberal and Centre Union’s list.

In the 1990 elections to the Supreme Council, he was elected in the Naujakiemis constituency No. 42 (Klaipėda city).

According to his 2024 parliamentary election asset declaration, Gentvilas owned assets worth about €278,324 and held €15,182 in cash, while his total income in the preceding year was €57,301 (with €11,417 in taxes paid).

The base monthly salary of a member of the Seimas was about €3,356 (gross) in 2019, with higher figures for those in positions like committee chairs or parliamentary leaders.

Gentvilas’s official net worth appeared to jump by about €685,000 in 2015 (with his declared real estate value rising from €113k to €392k, and land value from €149k to €516k) largely due to a technicality — he acknowledged that he likely failed to convert his asset values from Lithuanian litas to euros in earlier declarations, leading to an artificial surge on paper. Notably, he had no outstanding loans during that period.

During his tenure as Director of Klaipėda State Seaport (around 2009–2010), Gentvilas’s monthly salary was approximately 2.5 thousand euros, which he later noted was relatively low compared to his successors’ pay.

He was the director of the Lithuanian–US private company UAB Klaipėdos vystymo grupė from 1995 to 1997, and was a founder of the Klaipėda Free Economic Zone.

He worked on the campaign staff of Stasys Lozoraitis during the first presidential election in 1993.

In 1988–1990, he was a member of the Seimas (Council) of the Lithuanian Sąjūdis Reform Movement.

He was an active participant in the Lithuanian Green Movement in the late 1980s.

In August 2025, the Seimas Ethics and Procedures Commission ruled that Gentvilas did not violate the code of conduct when he called fellow MP Artūras Skardžius a “suski” (scumbag) and a liar during a TV debate.

In 2018 the Klaipėda State Seaport Authority filed a lawsuit against Gentvilas, which he publicly called illogical and possibly an act of revenge by certain interests.

Gentvilas and his family privately own significant forest lands (approximately 40 hectares in total – Eugenijus about 33 ha and his son Simonas 8 ha). Both father and son have been active in proposing to abolish the 5% tax on income from timber sales in private forests, a change that would also personally benefit them as forest owners, raising conflict-of-interest concerns.

In July 2025, Gentvilas publicly criticized President Gitanas Nausėda as “minkštakūnis” (literally “soft-bodied,” implying spinelessness). The President’s office retaliated with an unusually harsh remark – an advisor quoted Nausėda calling Gentvilas “sena politinė šiukšlė” (an “old political trash”) that voters hadn’t yet thrown away. Nausėda later confirmed he used that epithet and stated he did not regret it.

In 2018, as party chairman, Gentvilas warned that if the election commission revoked another state subsidy, the Liberal Movement could go bankrupt.

On 1 July 2000, Gentvilas was awarded the Lithuanian Independence Medal.

He has also received national honors from France, Norway, and Latvia.

He was a laureate of Lithuania’s national competitions for young scientists.

He has authored approximately 20 scientific publications and 500 journalistic articles on subjects like environmental protection, the Sąjūdis movement, and politics.

Gentvilas is multilingual, speaking Lithuanian as his native language, as well as English, Russian, and Spanish.