Lithuania’s restaurants, hotels, and cafes are gearing up to protest in Vilnius next Thursday against rising taxes, with similar actions planned to take place in Estonia and Latvia at the same time.
Evalda Šiškauskienė, head of the Lithuanian Association of Hotels and Restaurants, the organiser of the protest in Lithuania, said that the hospitality sector’s representatives will gather in front of the government building in Vilnius.
Additionally, a recording highlighting the current situation in the sector will be played in restaurants and cafes during the protest.
“The Latvians will protest outside the Saeima [in Riga], and the Estonians will do it in all restaurants,” Šiškauskienė told BNS. “We’re all going to stage this protest at the same time.”
While Estonian restaurants will halt service for 20 minutes, Lithuanians have opted not to follow suit because this would have too great an impact on their already struggling sector, according to the association’s head.
“Consumption has dropped sharply as it is, and if we scare people into closing [during the protest], they could go bankrupt immediately. The situation is so dire that you cannot even imagine,” she said.
Lithuanian restaurants, cafes, and other food service providers saw their combined sales for January-August 2024 drop by an annual 7.3 percent to 1.056 billion euros, not including VAT, based on official statistics.
The VAT rate for food service establishments was cut to 9 percent in July 2021 to help businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic, but it was raised back to the standard 21 percent at the start of this year.
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