Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs suggested holding a consultative popular referendum on Latvia’s possible withdrawal from the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention on violence against women, LETA reports. Kulbergs said that the ruling United List had discussed the idea of a legally non-binding referendum on the question with President Edgars Rinkevics. Kulbergs said that referendum…
The Baltic States have among the highest suicide rates in the EU, according to Eurostat, LSM reports. The data show that the number of suicides in Lithuania was 562 in 2023, which was up from 532 in 2022. Suicides totalled 270 (231) in Latvia and 199 (195) in Estonia. Lithuania’s standardised death rate for intentional…
Latvia had around 413,000 seniors aged 65 years and older in the beginning of 2026, which was 25,000 more than in 2016, according to the Central Statistical Bureau’s (CSP) data, LSM reported. Seniors now account for 22.4% of Latvia’s total population, which is up from 19.9% ten years ago. Latvia has the EU’s largest gender…
Estonians are markedly more active physically than Latvians and Lithuanians, according to Eurostat statistics, LSM reports. The data showed that 73.2% of Estonians aged 16 years or older engaged in physical activity outside work at least once a week in 2025, which was down from 82.4% in 2022. By comparison, a mere 52.3% (47.7%) of…
Estonians travelled less and Lithuanians and Latvians more in 2025 than a year earlier, according to Eurostat, LSM reports. The data showed that Lithuanians made altogether 7.19 million overnight trips in 2025, which was up 4.4% from 6.89 million in 2024. The number of trips by Latvian residents totalled 5.04 million, which was up 3.0%…
Altogether 12,294 Lithuanian citizens returned to Lithuania while 11,753 moved away from the country in the first nine months of 2026, according to the State Data Agency’s preliminary statistics, LRT reported. In September 2026, the number of emigrants was higher than that of returnees. Until now, the number of Lithuanians returning home has been higher…
Estonia’s new president, Ülle Madise, made her first working visits in office to neighbouring Latvia and Finland, BNS reported. In her meetings with the Latvian and Finnish presidents, she discussed defence and regional security, energy and transport connections, protection of critical infrastructure, support for Ukraine, Nordic-Baltic cooperation, and transatlantic relations. At a joint press conference…
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Lithuania (LGP) has asked the country’s public broadcaster, Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT), to explain its conduct of journalistic investigations, LRT reports. LGP sent a detailed list of 15 questions to LRT’s director general, Monika Garbaciauskaite-Budriene, asking how the company regulated secret recordings internally. The questions relate to an…
Estonia’s former chancellor of justice, Ülle Madise, was sworn in as the country’s new president in the parliament, the Riigikogu, on 12 October 2026, ERR reports. She was elected to the office by the 101-member parliament with 71 votes on 2 September 2026. In her first speech as president, Madise noted that past attempts to…
