The parliamentary Committee on Culture are holding a meeting on Wednesday to discuss why Russian artists close to the Kremlin continue performing in Lithuania.
“We will try to find a way to find out who will take responsibility and who has to make the final decision to prevent one or another performer from coming to Lithuania,” Conservative MP Vytautas Kernagis, chairman of the committee, told BNS.
According to him, the ministries do not agree on who should take action to prevent such cultural figures from performing in Lithuania.
“The ministries have not found agreement yet, some say it [action] is necessary, others say it is not,” Kernagis said.
Representatives of the State Security Department, the Ministries of the Interior, Foreign Affairs and Culture were invited to the meeting of the Committee on Culture on Wednesday.
The situation will be examined in a closed session.
Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Lithuania has barred performers who have expressed support for the Kremlin’s action and have performed in Crimea or in the separatist regions of eastern Ukraine.
Lithuania has placed several Russian artists on the list of undesirable persons, including pop singers Filip Kirkorov, Natasha Koroliova and others.
Last year, Culture Minister Simonas Kairys expressed hope that no Russian cultural figures would not be able to come to Lithuania, primarily because Lithuania does not issue visas to Russian citizens.
The parliament, Seimas, has adopted legislative amendments allowing the inclusion of those who have expressed support for aggressive policies of a foreign state in violation of international law on the list of undesirable persons in Lithuania.
These amendments were drafted after it emerged that the Council for Culture had granted subsidies for cancelled or postponed events to the organisers of shows in Lithuania by Russian artists Filip Kirkorov and Mikhail Shufutinsky.
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
