Lithuania’s newly-appointed Culture Minister, Ignotas Adomavicius, has refused to resign despite mass protests across the country against his appointment, BNS reports. Adomavicius is a member of the far-right Dawn of Nemunas party. Cultural workers have held protests in several cities, insisting that Adomavicius is unfit to head the Ministry of Culture as he has no professional background in the sector. They plan to organise a warning strike on 5 October 2025. A petition against Adomavicius has been signed by more than 50,000 cultural figures.
President Gitanas Nauseda, who had earlier pledged not to approve members of the Dawn of Nemunas for ministerial posts but then changed his mind, said that he consented to Adomavicius’s appointment “with a heavy heart,” Lietuvos Rytas reported. He urged cultural workers to give Adomavicius a chance and proposed a three-month “trial period” for the new minister, BNS reported. In response, several cultural institutions have suspended their cooperation with the presidential office or have resigned en masse, LRT reported.
Nauseda’s chief adviser, Jolanta Karpaviciene, said that the president’s position was that groups like the Dawn of Nemunas “were born and grow from division,” LRT reported. MP Saulius Skvernelis, chairman of the opposition Union of Democrats for Lithuania (DSVL), said that “the president’s word means nothing now,” accusing him of inconsistency. When Adomavicius was sworn in to the ministerial post in the Lithuanian parliament, the Seimas, several opposition MPs turned their backs on him or walked out of the chamber, ELTA reported.