European Parliament President Roberta Metsola is coming to Vilnius on Friday to pick up the Freedom Prize awarded by the Lithuanian parliament. The EU legislative body has opted, however, to decline the cash prize.
“Roberta Metsola will visit the Seimas on January 12-13,” Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, speaker of the Seimas, said earlier this week. “In Vilnius, she will meet with government officials and the president and participate in commemorative events.”
Lithuania on Friday and Saturday is commemorating the Soviet crackdown on unarmed civilians in Vilnius on January 13, 1991.
The 2023 Freedom Prize will be presented to Petras Plumpa, a participant of Lithuania’s unarmed resistance to the Soviet occupation regime, and the European Parliament in a solemn ceremony at the parliament on Saturday.
However, the European Parliament decided to accept only the statuette, a small replica of the Freedom Monument by sculptor Juozas Zikaras, and declined the cash prize.
Deputy Seimas Speaker Radvilė Morkunaitė-Mikulenienė said the EP accepted the Freedom Prize as a moral award and recognition of its activities, leaving it to the Lithuanian parliament to decide what to do with the money.
She will suggest allocating the 11,000 euros to investigators of Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, the deputy speaker said.
The Seimas awarded the Freedom Prize 2023 to the EP for “the current efforts to consolidate democracy and human rights, for the defence of the right of nations to free self-determination and sovereignty, for the unrelenting efforts towards historical justice, for support to the cause of Lithuania’s freedom and the aspiration of the Soviet-occupied Baltic states towards independence, for the diplomatic assistance to Lithuania that had just restored its independence, and for the contribution its EU integration”.
The Freedom Prize was established by the Lithuanian parliament in 2011 to honour “individuals and organisations for their achievements in and contribution to the defence of human rights, development of democracy, and promotion of international cooperation for the cause of self-determination and sovereignty of the nations in Eastern and Central Europe”.
The prize is presented every year on January 13, when Lithuania marks the Day of the Defenders of Freedom.
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
