Commercial banks and other credit institutions in Lithuania have paid EUR 56mn in temporary solidarity tax for the second quarter of 2023, according to the Finance Ministry’s preliminary data, BNS reports. Altogether 18 credit institutions made the first quarterly advance payment by the deadline of 31 August 2023. Swedbank paid EUR 25mn, followed by SEB…
Lithuania has asked NATO to increase air defences in the Baltic States, BNS reports. Lithuania’s Deputy Defence Minister, Zilvinas Tomkus, met with the commander of NATO’s Allied Air Command (AIRCOM), General James Hecker, to discuss the issue. Tomkus asked NATO to deploy more assets, including fighter jets and air defence systems, to the region. The…
Average labour income in Lithuania stood at EUR 1,980 before taxes in the second quarter of 2023, which was up 12.3% from the same period of 2022, according to the State Social Insurance Fund (SoDra), BNS reports. The average monthly net wage amounted to EUR 1,230, which was up 11.2% over a year. The fastest…
Lithuanian commercial banks and other credit institutions are due to pay a total of over EUR 50mn in temporary solidarity tax by 31 August 2023, BNS reports. Banks will have to pay the full tax for 2023 by 15 June 2024. The tax is calculated based on net interest income that exceeds the average income…
Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry has invited the Vatican’s representative in Lithuania for a conversation after Pope Francis gave statements praising Russia, BNS reports. Speaking online to a group of Catholic Russians in Saint Petersburg, Pope Francis said that they were “heirs of the great Mother Russia” and of an “empire of great culture and great humanity.”…
Latvia’s national air carrier, airBaltic, will open flights on eleven new routes in May 2024, including seven from Latvia, two from Estonia, and two from Lithuania, BNS reports. The company will open flights from Riga to Alicante, Chisinau, Ljubljana, Pristina, Skopje, Sofia, and Tirana. Also, airBaltic will open flights from Tallinn to Billund in Denmark…
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda will make efforts to ensure that Germany’s brigade is deployed to Lithuania by 2026, according to his chief foreign policy adviser, Asta Skaisgiryte, BNS reports. Germany’s chief of defence, General Carsten Breuer, said that Germany would begin deploying the brigade in early 2024. Nauseda met with Breuer in Vilnius to discuss…
The Lithuanian government does not plan to close more checkpoints on the border with Belarus in the near future, Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte announced, LRT reports. However, she said that the possibility to do so remained, given that security threats persisted. A complete closure of the Belarus border would only be done in coordination with…
The Baltic States and Poland have agreed to close their borders with Belarus in the event of a “critical incident” involving the Russian private military company, Wagner Group, Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski announced, TVP World reports. Following their meeting in Warsaw, the Baltic and Polish interior ministers demanded that Belarus expel the Wagner mercenaries…