Paulius Saudargas

Paulius Saudargas was born on 13 March 1979 in Kaunas, Lithuania.

His father is Algirdas Saudargas, a prominent Lithuanian politician, diplomat, and former Member of the European Parliament.

Paulius Saudargas is married to Milda Saudargė and they have three children: sons Einoras and Lukas, and a daughter Viltė.

Saudargas is fluent in English, Polish, and Russian, in addition to his native Lithuanian.

In 2007, he earned a Doctor of Physical Sciences (PhD) from Vilnius University.

He completed a Master’s degree in Biophysics at Vilnius University in 2003.

In 2002, he undertook a professional development course at Vrije University in the Netherlands, and in 2003 another at the Institute of Fundamental Metrology in Denmark.

He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Physics (Physics Teacher specialization) from Vilnius University in 2001.

In 2007, he was a Research Fellow at the Competence Centre of Intermodal Transport and Logistics, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University.

He worked as an engineer at the Institute of Physics in Vilnius from 2002 to 2007.

During his early career, Saudargas’s earnings were in line with Lithuania’s relatively low public-sector salaries of the time. As a research engineer in the mid-2000s, his monthly pay would have been only a few hundred euros (for context, the average net wage in 2008 was about 1,650 LTL – roughly €480 ). This underscores that his pre-political income was modest.

From 1999 to 2000, he worked as a Senior Specialist in the Second Investigation Department under the Ministry of National Defence.

He became a member of the TS-LKD party’s Presidium (governing board) in 2009 and has served on it since then.

Saudargas has been a member of the Lithuanian Christian Democrats (LKD) party since the year 2000.

In March 2025, he was appointed as the First Deputy Chairman of the TS-LKD party under the new party leader Laurynas Kasčiūnas.

Since 2024 he has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament (10th parliamentary term), aligned with the European People’s Party group.

By 2023, Saudargas was serving as a Vice Chairman of the TS-LKD (Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats) party.

Saudargas served as Deputy Speaker of the Seimas (Parliament) from 17 November 2020 to 15 July 2024.

He was a member of the 13th Seimas from 2020 until 2024, when he left mid-term to assume a position in the European Parliament.

In October 2019, he was elected as the Chairman of the Homeland Union–Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) Christian Democrat community (party’s LKD wing).

In 2017, Saudargas ran in the TS-LKD (Homeland Union–Lithuanian Christian Democrats) leadership primaries as the candidate of the party’s Christian Democrat wing, but ultimately lost to Gabrielius Landsbergis.

He was a member of the 12th Seimas, serving from 2016 to 2020.

He served as a member of the 11th Seimas from 2012 to 2016.

He was a member of the 10th Seimas, serving in Parliament during the 2008–2012 term.

In 2008, he was the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrat party (TS-LKD).

He served as the Executive Secretary of the Lithuanian Christian Democrats party from 2007 to 2008.

Since becoming an MEP in 2024, he has been a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), and a substitute member of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO).

He was the Chair of the Seimas Commission for the Traditions and Heritage of Lithuanian Studies from January 2021 until July 2024.

He was a member of the Seimas commission responsible for awarding the Aleksandras Stulginskis Star from March 2021 until July 2024.

In the 2020–2024 term, Saudargas was a member of the Seimas Committee on Economics.

He served as a member of the Seimas Energy Commission (2016–2019) and continued as a member of its successor, the Energy and Sustainable Development Commission, from 2019 until 2024.

From 2012 to 2016, he served as Deputy Chair of the Seimas Committee on Environment Protection.

During the 2008–2012 term, he chaired the Commission of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and the Lithuanian World Community (a commission for diaspora affairs).

He headed the Seimas delegation to the Baltic Assembly during his 2008–2012 parliamentary term.

In the 2020 parliamentary elections, Saudargas was elected to the Seimas in the single-member Justiniškių–Viršuliškių constituency (No. 7) in Vilnius.

Saudargas first entered the Seimas in 2008 via the TS-LKD party list. In subsequent elections, he consistently won the Vilnius Justiniškių-based single-member constituency. He was elected as the MP for Justiniškių (No. 7) in 2012 and re-elected there in 2016. After constituency boundaries were adjusted, he again won the corresponding Justiniškių–Viršuliškių seat in 2020. In the 2020 election’s first round, Saudargas led with 29.5% of the vote, and he secured victory in the runoff.

In the 2008 parliamentary elections, Saudargas was ranked 7th on the Homeland Union–Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) candidate list. After the tally of preference votes, he shifted to 9th place on the list – still well within the party’s winning seats (TS-LKD secured a total of 44 mandates that year ), which ensured his entry into the Seimas as a new MP at age 29.

Since mid-2024, as a Member of the European Parliament, Saudargas earns a standard MEP salary of roughly €9,000 per month (gross), which is a little over €7,000 “take-home” after EU taxes. This salary is adjusted annually for inflation.

According to his 2024 European Parliament candidate disclosure, Saudargas had an annual income of €57,060 and accumulated assets totaling €321,547 at that time.

As Deputy Speaker of the Seimas (2020–2024), Saudargas had a monthly salary of approximately €3,000 gross (about €1,900 net). In 2018, Seimas Deputy Speakers’ official base pay was €2,968 before taxes, a figure that remained in the same range during Saudargas’s tenure.

As a rank-and-file Seimas member, Saudargas’s base salary was about €2,570 gross per month in the late 2010s. (Seimas members’ pay is determined by a coefficient tied to the civil service wage base.) This would equate to roughly €1,600 per month after taxes.

Over the past decade, Saudargas’s declared wealth has grown steadily but remained modest. He has never been listed among the very wealthiest Lithuanian politicians – for instance, in 2019 only five Seimas members declared assets exceeding €800,000 (Saudargas was not among them). By mid-2024, his net worth was roughly €320,000, reflecting gradual accumulation from public-sector income with no sudden windfalls.

Saudargas’s wealth has grown gradually in line with his public service career, with no abrupt or unexplained jumps. His financial disclosures over the last ten years have remained stable, reflecting his public-sector income and personal assets; no irregular surges in net worth have been reported in the media.

Saudargas has not been listed among the wealthiest Lithuanian politicians. In 2022, six Seimas members declared personal assets well above €800,000, but Saudargas’s declared assets fell below this threshold. His asset disclosures indicate modest wealth, with no million-euro holdings or large liabilities.

Saudargas is a member of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union, having joined the organization in 2015.

He was the Chairman of the non-governmental organization “Už pilietinę visuomenę” (For Civil Society) from 2005 to 2008, and remains a member of this NGO.

Early in his career, he was active in youth organisations; Saudargas served on the board of the Young Christian Democrats in 2004–2005, and was a board member of the Lithuanian Youth Council (LiJOT) from 2005 to 2007 (chairing its Ethics Committee).

In March 2023, as a Seimas member, he introduced a bill to criminalize “contempt of religious beliefs” in places of worship (disrespectful acts in churches). The proposal passed its first reading but drew criticism from both opposition and some coalition MPs, with comparisons to Russia’s imprisonment of the punk band Pussy Riot.

In May 2021, Saudargas publicly voiced opposition to a proposed civil partnership law (aimed at legally recognizing same-sex unions). He argued that the concept of family should remain founded on a “natural complementarity of the sexes” and that any redefinition must be decided by society via referendum.

Saudargas faced criticism in 2009 for supporting Lithuania’s controversial “Law on the Protection of Minors against the Negative Impact of Public Information”. The law was condemned by the European Parliament as discriminatory, but Saudargas defended it by asserting that “Europe will not dictate its terms to us” on national moral issues.

Paulius Saudargas is a co-author of the books “Gulago partizanai” and “Kalinio riba,” which are based on historical themes.