Estonia’s Supreme Court has rejected a request from President Alar Karis to declare legislative amendments obliging religious associations to sever their ties with hostile foreign states unconstitutional, ERR reports. Karis had insisted that the amendments violated the Constitution, arguing that the law would place excessive restrictions on freedom of religion and association. However, the Supreme…
A new Baltic think tank, the Baltic International Security Centre (BISC), was launched at an event in the Belgian capital, Brussels, on 3 June 2026, LSM reports. The UK-based centre was founded by British veteran journalist and security expert Edward Lucas. BISC’s patrons are four former Baltic presidents: Estonia’s Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Latvia’s Vaira Vike-Freiberga…
A Lithuanian soldier serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (ZSU) has gone missing in action, LRT reported. According to 15min, the 25-year-old Lithuanian had been taking part in a combat mission in an area that was shelled by Russian occupation forces. Reportedly, the soldier had been serving as an assistant grenade launcher since February 2026….
This year’s Baltic Pride parade was held in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, on 6 June 2026, ERR reports. The parade progressed through Tallinn’s Old Town and ended with an open-air concert at the Telliskivi Creative City. This year’s theme was “silence will not defeat hate,” emphasising the need to speak up and take action against…
A petition initiated by the mayor of the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, Valdas Benkunskas, on stricter language rules for foreigners has collected more than 22,500 signatures, BNS reports. Under the proposal, non-EU residents would be required to have at least A2-level proficiency in Lithuanian after three years of residence. Earlier, Interior Minister Vladislav Kondratovic argued that…
The number of Lithuanian emigrants returning home exceeded the number of those who left the country for the sixth consecutive year in 2025, according to data from the State Data Agency (VDA), BNS reported. Altogether 19,310 Lithuanian citizens returned to the country, while 9,940 citizens moved away from Lithuania in 2025. The majority of those…
Estonia ensures much better protection for LGBT rights than Latvia and Lithuania, according to human rights group ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map, which ranks countries based on their legal and policy protection for LGBT people, LSM reports. Estonia ranked 21st on the index with a score of 46.37% on a scale of 0-100% in 2026, which was…
The Lithuanian parliament, the Seimas, has adopted changes to the law governing the country’s public broadcaster, Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT), LRT reports. The approved amendments are softer than the initial proposals, which sparked mass protests across the country and invited criticism from several media organisations both in Lithuania and abroad. However, LRT’s director…
Latvia’s population totalled 1.845 million people in the beginning of 2026, which was down 15,500 (0.83%) from a year earlier, according to data from the Central Statistical Bureau (CSP), LSM reported. The population declined in all regions. Altogether 69.8% of people lived in cities and 30.2% in rural areas, with 46.0% living in Riga region….