Over 10,000 people in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, protested outside the parliament, the Seimas, on 8 April 2026 against proposed changes to legislation governing the country’s public broadcaster, Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT), BNS reported. The demonstration was organised by the Association of Professional Journalists (ZPA). Nevertheless, Seimas speaker Juozas Olekas insisted that the…
Nearly a half (48.2%) of Latvians felt in good or very good health in 2025, which was up from 35.1% in 2005, according to the Central Statistical Bureau (CSP), LSM reports. The survey data showed that 43.7% of Latvian residents aged 16 years and older rated their health as good and 4.5% as very good….
Every tenth resident of the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, is a foreign national, according to the city’s mayor, Valdas Benkunskas, ELTA reports. Vilnius has altogether around 76,000 foreign residents, of whom 61,000 (80%) are non-EU citizens, BNS reported. Around 40,000 of the foreigners, mostly from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, have temporary residence permits. The mayor warned…
The Latvian parliament, the Saeima, has passed a law on the establishment of a new national concert hall, the Riga Philharmonic, LETA reports. The law designates the concert hall with the status of an object of national interest. The plan is to build the concert hall by reconstructing and expanding the Riga Congress Centre. The…
The Lithuanian government is pressing ahead with legislative proposals that would impose political control over the country’s public broadcaster, Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT), LRT reports. Earlier, opposition MPs as well as representatives of the Lithuanian Association of Professional Journalists (ZPA) and LRT staff withdrew in protest from a parliamentary working group set up…
Estonia’s central bank, the Bank of Estonia, has recommended that residents keep about a week’s worth of cash at home, ERR reports. Rainer Olt, head of payment and settlement systems at the Bank of Estonia, stressed that cash reserves were necessary in case of disruptions to electronic payment systems. Around 8% of Estonians prefer to…
Drivers of motor vehicles in Latvia paid altogether EUR 8.5mn in traffic fines in 2025, according to the country’s Road Traffic Safety Directorate (CSDD), LSM reports. The most violations were registered on the A8 and A1 highways and on Juglas Street in Riga. CSDD’s 100 stationary speed cameras record an average of 200,000 speeding violations…
Latvia has recorded the country’s first outbreak of measles since 2018, according to the Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (SPKC), LETA reports. SPKC has so far registered 36 cases, most of them children, and the number of cases continues to rise, LETA reports. Many of the infected children are students at Riga Waldorf School,…
A majority of Estonians oppose foreign labour, according to a Norstat poll for the Institute for Societal Research (YI), ERR reports. The survey shows that 71% of respondents oppose and 19% support bringing in labour from outside the EU, while 52% oppose and 37% support labour from other EU countries. Also, 76% of respondents think…