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…
MPs from two parties in Estonia’s current coalition government have drafted a bill to cut the gambling tax, ERR reports. The group of MPs from the Estonian Reform Party and Estonia 200 proposed cutting the gambling tax by 0.5 percentage points every year to 4% by 2029. They argued that the tax cut could, in…
Lithuania’s Foreign Minister, Kestutis Budrys, hoped that “significant progress” be made in EU membership talks with Ukraine by the first half of 2027, BNS reported. He warned that if full negotiations did not begin by 2027 and were not completed in 2027 or early 2028, Ukraine’s EU accession would be “almost unrealistic” by 2030. Budrys…
Estonia’s Minister of Culture, Heidy Purga, has been elected to the foundation board of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), ERR reports. She is the first ever Estonian on the organisation’s governing body and will represent the EU. The board has altogether 42 members.
Thousands of people demonstrated in the centre of the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, against Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas on 8 July 2025, BNS reported. The protest rally was organised by the Democracy Forum and local activists. The demonstrators demanded answers from Paluckas on his current and past business dealings, an end to the current coalition with…
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid a working visit to Latvia on 8 July 2025, LSM reported. He held talks with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics and Prime Minister Evika Silina. Steinmeier highlighted Germany’s special connection and historical and cultural ties with Latvia. Speaking about bilateral cooperation on security policy, he noted that Latvia was beginning to…
Estonian capital Tallinn’s mayor, Jevgeni Ossinovski of the Social Democratic Party (SDE), survived a vote of no confidence in the city council on 8 July 2025, ERR reported. The motion received 33 votes out of 40 needed to oust the mayor. Members of the city’s four-party ruling coalition did not take part in the extraordinary…
Poland has temporarily reinstated internal controls at 13 checkpoints on its border with Lithuania in response to increased secondary irregular migration via Belarus, LRT reports. Both Lithuania’s State Border Guard Service (VSAT) and the Lithuanian National Road Carriers Association (LINAVA) said that there were no traffic jams on the border on the first day of…
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has expressed “grave alarm” at the decision of the three Baltic States, Finland, Poland, and Ukraine, to withdraw from the Ottawa Treaty banning anti-personnel mines, BNS reported. Türk stressed that the international convention, which has over 160 state parties, was a crucial tool in “responding to…
