Gender equality in Lithuania improved in 2025, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality’s (EIGE) Gender Equality Index, BNS reports. Lithuania ranked 14th out of 27 EU member states, which was up from 16th place in 2024. Lithuania’s national score on the equality index was 60.9 out of 100 points, which was below the…
Swedish-owned IKEA Group has received permission from the Estonian Competition Authority (Konkurentsiamet) to acquire 18,000 hectares of forest from Swedish-owned Södra Forest Estonia, ERR reports. Under the deal, IKEA Group’s subsidiary, Ingka Investments, will buy Södra’s forests in Estonia and Latvia for EUR 720mn. Latvia’s Competition Council has received notification of the deal. Södra owns…
The Lithuanian government may declare an emergency due to the growing security threat posed by smuggler balloons launched from neighbouring Belarus, Interior Minister Vladislav Kondratovic announced, BNS reports. He said that the government was assessing the impact on public safety and border security and was considering several options. Earlier, MEP Aurelijus Veryga, chairman of the…
Latvia’s state real estate management company, Valsts Nekustamie Ipasumi (VNI), plans to complete the construction of a fence along the full stretch of the country’s border with Russia by the end of 2025, LSM reports. Only around 6 kilometres of the fence remains to be built in areas of difficult terrain along the border. VNI…
Estonia’s state-owned postal services provider, Omniva (Eesti Post), plans to nearly halve the number of post offices nationwide in 2026, ERR reports. The company will cut the number of post offices from current 35 to 19. Omniva will continue to have at least one post office in each of Estonia’s 15 counties. Also, the company…
The Lithuanian government has decided to accept half of allocated migrants into the country and pay for the remainder under the EU’s migration and asylum pact, the Ministry of Interior announced, ELTA reports. The ministry said that the decision was based on an assessment of national capacity, the regional migration situation, and the ability of…
The Latvian parliament, the Saeima, has approved amendments reducing state support for Ukrainian refugees in Latvia, LSM reports. The government will allocate EUR 39.7mn of budget funds to support Ukrainians in the country in 2026, which will be down from EUR 65mn in 2025. The government will stop support to those Ukrainians who have found…
Estonia’s opposition party, national conservative Fatherland (Isamaa), remained the country’s most popular political party in November 2025, according to Norstat’s poll for the Institute for Societal Research (YI), ERR reports. The poll showed that 29.1% of eligible voters now support Fatherland, followed by the opposition left-of-centre Estonian Centre Party (Keskerakond) with 20.9%, the far-right Conservative People’s…
The average monthly gross wage in Lithuania amounted to EUR 2,427.6 in the third quarter of 2025, which was up 8.5% from the same period of 2024, the State Data Agency (VDA) reported. The average net wage stood at EUR 1,484.4, which was up 7.8% over a year. Compared to the second quarter of 2025,…