Lithuanian cultural activists said Wednesday they will not join Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė’s proposed negotiating group and will move forward with a warning strike to protest the Nemunas Dawn party taking charge of the Culture Ministry.
“It has already been decided not to join the negotiating group. Our key demand, which is value-based, is not even being considered. All these statements that it is impossible are just excuses, treating people of culture as ignorant and clueless,” Arūnas Gelūnas, director of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, told reporters.
Gintarė Masteikaitė, head of the Lithuanian Dance Information Centre, said the dispute is not about wages or working conditions but about removing Nemunas Dawn from the ministry.
“The Social Democrats suggested through the media that we negotiate on wages and working conditions, but at this stage we are definitely not negotiating on that,” she said.
The two spoke after the cultural community’s third assembly on Wednesday, which discussed plans for the October 5 warning strike, among other issues.
The Social Democrats’ decision to hand the culture portfolio in the new Cabinet to Nemunas Dawn in exchange for the energy portfolio triggered protests in major Lithuanian cities last week. Some organisers declared that the president, the prime minister and the culture minister were not welcome at their events and rejected their patronage.
Cultural leaders say Ignotas Adomavičius, a Nemunas Dawn member appointed as culture minister, is unfit for the role because of a lack of experience and poor understanding of the sector.
On October 5, cultural workers and members of the public are invited to gather in squares, cultural centres and museums across the country to listen to or perform The Sea by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis.
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