It's European Politics

After entering yesterday's blog entry, I went to a meeting about CO2 capture and sequestration, only this time companies that have an interest in winning the contest were there. By being the first to respond to the official contest announcement, a company has the right to bury CO2 collected from Lithuanian factories, and bury it in the ground. At the meeting, a man from the deep south from U.S.A. was there. He is the CEO of an oil company in Lithuania. He provided an incredibly clear argument stating the costs, effects, and benefits of him winning the contest. The Environmental Protection committee listened to his arguments, but there were members from other companies that kept arguing the points and they were hard to follow. Afterward, I talked to this man, and he basically has no hope or faith in Lithuania's government. I've been thinking a lot about what he said because he wasn't far off the truth. I would rather not say exactly what he said on this blog.

This morning I learned that European politics is different from American politics. At first I read the following article from the 'Economist'. It talks about how Americans hope their politicians are perfect while Europeans are more forgiving.
economist article
After reading the article, I asked p. Lygis, another person working for p. Simenas, what he thought of the phrase "Seimo nariai will not be touched by the law". He completely disagrees because he says people become nariai and do whatever they want for the four years they are nariai. Then I asked p. Simenas, and he believes that court cases can distract a politician, especially if the politician is innocent, which has happened before. I respectfully disagree, but that is the kind of seimas that exists in Lithuania. There are many nariai, and I don't believe p. Simenas is one of them, that are doing many illegal actions, but they can't be touched by the law.

Next was the general meeting with all the nariai. Minimum wage was not increased from 700 litai a month to 1000 litai a month, and social security will be voted on a later date. At the end of the meeting, there were discussions about alcohol advertising. In about an hour, there will be a vote as to whether or not alcohol can be advertised during the day. There was a group of activists who showed up in favor of the bill, meaning they don't want alcohol to be advertised during the day.