Journalists and other employees at Lithuania’s public broadcaster, LRT, have announced a week-long protest as parliament begins debating legislation that would make it easier for the LRT Council to dismiss the broadcaster’s director general, and after lawmakers froze LRT's budget for three years.
In a statement issued on Monday, staff called on the ruling coalition “to withdraw the proposal to change the director general’s dismissal procedure and to begin a meaningful discussion on depoliticising the LRT Council, involving journalist organisations as well as media and legal experts”.
Throughout the week, LRT employees –including journalists, presenters, producers, camera operators and technical staff – will hold brief moments of silence on air. During these pauses, they will explain why independent media is vital to a democratic society and point to examples of states where political control of the press has contributed to democratic decline.
“Our concern is not about any specific individuals – we are protesting against efforts to dismantle the safeguards that protect LRT’s independence,” the statement read.
Last week, MPs backed the first reading of a bill submitted by Nemunas Dawn leader Remigijus Žemaitaitis that would allow the LRT Council to dismiss the director general with a simple majority rather than the current two-thirds vote.
Žemaitaitis has since suggested that the threshold may be revised to require support from more than half of council members – at least seven of the twelve –but the LRT Council insists the existing requirement of a qualified majority of eight votes should remain in place.
LRT journalists say they are facing unprecedented political pressure and accuse members of the ruling bloc of attempting to bring the broadcaster under political control. Reporter Edvardas Kubilius said some colleagues had received threats from individual MPs.
Eglė Samoškaitė, a journalist with LRT’s news website, said the proposed changes were designed to weaken the media and warned that “we should not wait until it is too late”.
Parliament also voted last week to freeze LRT’s funding from 2026 to 2028 at €79.6 million a year.
In early November, Nemunas Dawn adopted a resolution accusing media outlets of abandoning their public-service role and becoming “tools not of conveying information, but of concealment, open propaganda and sowing discord”.
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