PSCRP-BESA Reports No 175 (January 08, 2026)
by Kiryl Kascian
The recent developments around Lithuania’s public broadcaster, LRT, caught a lot of attention both within the country and internationally. The situation runs deeper than just legislative efforts to reform LRT’s management. On one hand, this issue largely reflects the effects of the extreme plurality of the country’s political system. On the other hand, it also shows how the Lithuanian public perceives its national broadcaster.
LRT status and relevant contexts
Before discussing the specifics, the legal status and public perception of the LRT should be addressed. The LRT is a public body that’s owned by the State. For many years, the LRT has built a strong reputation in Lithuania as a reliable source for impartial news, and it generally enjoys a high level of public trust in Lithuanian society. Its management and daily operations are guided by the Lithuanian National Radio and Television Law.
In April 2025, the Lithuanian Seimas (Parliament) tasked the National Audit Office of Lithuania to comprehensively look into how the LRT operated between 2021 and 2024, specifically checking its economy, efficiency, and effectiveness. When their report came out on October 31, 2025, it generally showed that the LRT handles its money in a clear and efficient way. However, it also suggested that the LRT could make some improvements, particularly with how it hires staff, manages its purchases, and makes its programs easier for everyone to access.
The findings of the audit report offered various stakeholders in Lithuania different ways to interpret its content. The management of the LRT considers these results to be more about operational and procedural weaknesses that can be fixed using the public broadcaster’s existing resources. However, certain groups within the Lithuanian political landscape perceive this situation as deeper systemic problems. The Nemunas Dawn (Lithuanian: Nemuno Aušra) party, a member of the ruling coalition, has been the main proponent of proposed changes concerning the LRT. They argued that these issues require legislative action and should address both financial and management matters, particularly the ability to remove the Director General. This populist party was established in the autumn of 2023, and its leader, Remigijus Žemaitaitis, is known, among other things, for his antisemitic remarks.
The excessive role played by the Nemunas Dawn party can largely be attributed to the highly pluralistic nature of Lithuania’s political system. The outcomes of several recent parliamentary elections in Lithuania demonstrate that forming a government requires a coalition of multiple political parties. This dynamic allows certain political groups, which might otherwise have limited opportunities to influence policy-making, to gain considerable weight. Following the most recent parliamentary election in October 2024, some commentators even described Žemaitaitis as a “kingmaker” in the formation of the ruling coalition. Despite his toxic reputation, it was very difficult for other political groups to form a viable coalition without the participation of Žemaitaitis and his party.
A key illustration of the Nemunas Dawn party’s outsized influence became evident during the coalition talks following Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas’s resignation in August 2025. Although Nemunas Dawn was initially expected to secure three ministries, they ended up with the Ministry of Culture instead of the Energy Ministry. The core aspect here is that the Ministry of Culture oversees information and media policy in Lithuania. This switch, and the subsequent appointment of Ignotas Adomavičius, a Nemunas Dawn member with no prior experience in cultural matters, sparked widespread protests within Lithuania’s cultural community. Adomavičius ultimately resigned on October 3, 2025, after only a week in the position. While Adomavičius faced direct criticism for his activities and statements, the protests primarily signified a broader opposition to the Nemunas Dawn’s assertion of control over the cultural domain. In other words, the story of the one-week rule of the Nemunas Dawn in the ministry demonstrates that the party’s excessive weight in Lithuanian politics clashes with the unwillingness of the society to entrust it with responsibility for such sensitive domains as culture.
Under the Lithuanian National Radio and Television Law, the LRT is led by a Director General. Since 2018, Monika Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė has held this position, and she’s currently serving her second term. She was reappointed in October 2023, at a time when Ingrida Šimonytė’s government, which was a coalition of the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, the Liberal Movement of the Republic of Lithuania, and the Freedom Party, was still in power.
The position of Director General became one of the main targets of the proposed legislative amendments. On one hand, these changes aim to lower the voting threshold for the LRT Council for the possible early dismissal of the Director General. Currently, it requires at least eight out of twelve members voting openly, but the new proposal would reduce this to just over half (seven out of twelve) and introduce a secret ballot. Additionally, they plan to introduce new grounds for removing the Director General. While dismissal currently needs a justification specifically based on public interest, these new amendments could allow for removal if the Council rejects the broadcaster’s annual activity report or decides the Director General isn’t performing their duties correctly. These amendments seek to simplify the process for potentially removing the Director General earlier. Moreover, they also make it impossible for the public to identify how individual LRT Council members vote on the issue.
Vulnerability of the political neutrality
Analyzing the developments around the LRT requires addressing three key aspects. The first of these concerns legal issues. Specifically, amendments proposed by the Nemunas Dawn party are inconsistent with Article 5 of the European Media Freedom Act. This article mandates that EU Member States ensure independent and transparent procedures for appointing and dismissing public service media management. It further stipulates that any dismissal of management of public service media providers before their term ends must be justified, exceptional, based on pre-established national criteria, include prior notification, and allow for judicial review. A secret ballot contradicts the concept of transparency, and its combination with a lowered threshold makes the public broadcaster significantly more vulnerable to any political instability. Nevertheless, these concerns did not prevent the legislator from voting on, on November 27, 2025, an amendment to the Law on LRT at first reading, which included the above-described changes to ease the dismissal of the LRT Director General.
The second aspect of the situation concerns procedural issues. In December 2025, when the governmental coalition tried to fast-track the adoption of the legislation on the LRT, Lithuania’s parliament witnessed its first-ever filibuster. Opposition Members of Parliament responded by submitting hundreds of amendments, many of which were intentionally absurd. The most notable of these involved a satirical proposal concerning Nuodėgulis, MP Agnė Širinskienė’s cat, suggesting the LRT Director General could only be dismissed if the cat expressed a lack of confidence. This amendment aimed to satirize the opposition’s perception of the legislative process as rushed and politicized. Despite being a joke, this “cat amendment” got unexpectedly approved. It attracted significant public and media attention and demonstrated how filibuster tactics can be used to critique legislation, especially when its passage is being pushed through quickly.
The third aspect concerns personal and social dimensions. Opponents of the amendments claim that these changes are primarily designed to remove Monika Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė from her role. Moreover, about two-thirds of LRT employees strongly oppose the legislative changes. They demand the LRT Council’s resignation and also accuse Mindaugas Jurkynas, the LRT Council Chairman, of backing these amendments. They claim these changes were forced through parliament. Their argument is that the Council failed to protect LRT from political pressure and secure its editorial freedom. Overall, Lithuanian civil society demonstrated maturity through its mobilization to protect the current status of LRT. For example, on December 9, 2025, a protest rally in front of the parliament drew at least 12,000 people. An online petition also gained significant popularity, collecting over 144,000 signatures. Even sports events served as platforms for addressing this issue. On December 27, 2025, during a basketball game in Vilnius between two most decorated Lithuanian teams, Rytas Vilnius and Žalgiris Kaunas, their fans demonstrated unity on the matter of media freedom by chanting their message to policymakers.
What does this story demonstrate?
As President Gitanas Nausėda stated, the process of the adoption of the legislative amendments looked as if “Lithuania is staging a hybrid attack against itself” and not for the country’s benefit. Later, he said that the ruling coalition committed not to fast-track the amendments, whereas the opposition promised not to use filibustering tactics. The coalition representatives pledged to introduce a revised bill by February 2026, and its preparation seems to involve opposition and experts. The formation of a working group to draft a revised bill could be seen as a positive move toward a compromise. This group includes both MPs and media representatives, and it is expected to involve external experts. Even with the working group’s unbalanced makeup, the ruling coalition’s representatives need to recognize the serious reputational risks of dismissing the concerns of the opposition and the media.
The civil society therefore acted as a watchdog against the politicization of the public broadcaster’s status, viewing it as a threat to free media. Moreover, this situation highlighted the social value of the public broadcaster in its existing form. However, it also revealed the vulnerability of Lithuania’s extremely pluralistic political system. This scenario was exemplified by the role of Nemunas Dawn in the process, where a populist party with limited political capital gained disproportionate influence due to the political expediency of maintaining a viable governmental coalition.
Dr. Kiryl Kascian is Director of the Centre for Communication Influences and Propaganda Research, Faculty of Communication of Vilnius University, Lithunia, [email protected]