Estonia: Coop to buy Prisma hypermarkets
Finnish retail group S Group’s supermarket operator, SOK, will sell its 13 Prisma Peremarket hypermarkets…
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Welcome to Via Baltica, your “information superhighway” for news from the three Baltic tigers of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania! Our founder and editor-in-chief is Kerkko Paananen, senior news analyst with more than two decades of professional expertise in covering and reporting on current affairs in the Baltic States. We aim to do one thing well:…
Estonia: Coop to buy Prisma hypermarkets
Finnish retail group S Group’s supermarket operator, SOK, will sell its 13 Prisma Peremarket hypermarkets in Estonia to local cooperative retailer Coop Eesti for an undisclosed price, ERR reports. Under the deal, the Prisma stores, nine of which are located in Tallinn, will change their name to Coop. The parties expect to complete the transaction…
Lithuania: French court extradites fugitive Russian banker
A court in France has ruled to extradite Russian banker Vladimir Antonov to Lithuania, where he has been found guilty of large-scale fraud, AFP reports. Antonov was detained in western France in December 2025, following a European arrest warrant issued by Lithuania. Antonov’s lawyer, Henry Ermeneux, said that his client would appeal the court ruling,…
Latvia: Government mulls windfall tax on fuel retailers
The Latvian government is considering a windfall tax on fuel retailers, LETA reports. Under the proposal, fuel retailers would have to pay a solidarity tax if their actual retail price was more than 3% higher than the objectively calculated indicative retail price. Earlier, the government lowered the excise duty on diesel fuel temporarily until 30…
Estonia: Tallinn to draw up new master plan
The municipal government of the Estonian capital, Tallinn, will draw up a new citywide development plan, ERR reports. The previous plan was completed in 2001. In the next 25 years, Tallinn did urban planning by city district. The new plan will focus on developing urban space, including transport networks, educational institution networks, and district centres. Tallinn’s…
Lithuania: 10% of Vilnius residents foreigners
Every tenth resident of the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, is a foreign national, according to the city’s mayor, Valdas Benkunskas, ELTA reports. Vilnius has altogether around 76,000 foreign residents, of whom 61,000 (80%) are non-EU citizens, BNS reported. Around 40,000 of the foreigners, mostly from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, have temporary residence permits. The mayor warned…
Latvia: Parliament backs national concert hall
The Latvian parliament, the Saeima, has passed a law on the establishment of a new national concert hall, the Riga Philharmonic, LETA reports. The law designates the concert hall with the status of an object of national interest. The plan is to build the concert hall by reconstructing and expanding the Riga Congress Centre. The…
Estonia: Industrial production down 0.5% in February 2026
The total production of industrial enterprises in Estonia decreased by 0.5% at constant prices over a year in February 2026, according to data from Statistics Estonia, ERR reports. Compared to January 2026, seasonally-adjusted total industrial production fell by 0.7% and manufacturing by 0.8%. Riin Kadarik, leading analyst at Statistics Estonia, said that the decrease was…
Lithuania: Government pursues control over public broadcaster
The Lithuanian government is pressing ahead with legislative proposals that would impose political control over the country’s public broadcaster, Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT), LRT reports. Earlier, opposition MPs as well as representatives of the Lithuanian Association of Professional Journalists (ZPA) and LRT staff withdrew in protest from a parliamentary working group set up…
Latvia: PM pushes Baltics to invest in airBaltic
The Latvian government has again suggested that all three Baltic States invest in Latvia’s national airline, airBaltic, ERR reports. Prime Minister Evika Silina argued that the Baltic countries should work together to “coordinate aviation” in the region. She intends to discuss the issue with her Estonian and Lithuanian counterparts. Earlier, the Estonian government rejected Latvia’s…