Some 300 protesters are taking part in a rally outside the government office in central Vilnius on Wednesday, demanding to protect Lifosa, the Kėdainiai-based phosphate fertiliser producer, from closure.
Kristina Krupavičienė, chair of the Solidarumas (Solidarity) trade union, one of the rally’s organisers, says the goal of this rally is to help save about 900 jobs.
“If the plant is closed, people will have no jobs. One thing is that 900 people and their families will lose their income. The other thing is that the state will lose taxes and the company has been paying very good taxes because workers have been paid well,” she told reporters before the rally.
“As workers, we all want to keep our jobs. And we have been notified that 80 percent of workers may be dismissed and the company will be mothballed on October 1,” Vitalijus Varnas, chair of Lifosa’s independent trade union, told reporters.
Andrey Melnichenko, a Russian oligarch with close ties with the Kremlin and an indirect owner of Lifosa, was sanctioned by the EU on March 9. Subsequently, Lifosa’s accounts were frozen, and the company suspended operation on April 10.
On May 24, an interim administrator started work at Lifosa, charged with ensuring the company’s operations without breaching international sanctions.
On July 3, EuroChem, the Russian capital group that owns the company, announced that if no agreement was reached with Lithuanian authorities on the normalisation of the plant’s operations, it might be closed completely.
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