Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda on Thursday called for de-escalation amid mounting tensions over proposed amendments to the law governing public broadcaster LRT, saying that if the conflict has gone too far, the entire LRT Council and top management should resign and be replaced.
Speaking in Brussels while attending a European Council meeting, Nausėda said a full reset of LRT’s leadership could defuse tensions and make rushed legislative changes unnecessary.
“If the conflict has progressed so deeply that there is no way back to the starting point, then the LRT Council should resign in full, and the administration as well – the director general and her deputy,” Nausėda said. “We would then form a new LRT Council through all the institutions responsible for this, announce a new competition, and all citizens of the Republic of Lithuania could participate.”
Nausėda said the dispute escalated after the LRT Council began actively exercising its statutory role of oversight, supervision and strategic planning.
“As long as the LRT Council was merely an appendage of the administration, there were no conflicts,” he said. “But once it began carrying out a function that is normal in any business or political organisation – that a board supervises and controls management – conflicts began to arise.”
About two-thirds of LRT employees have signed a letter submitted to the Council expressing no confidence in its work and calling for both the council and LRT management to step down.
Nausėda said such a move would be “a very understandable path” that could ease tensions and potentially render further legislative action unnecessary.
The president is also critical of the opposition's attempts to stall the adoption of the law by tabling absurd amendments, such as including a cat in deciding on dismissing the LRT head. He called it a “hybrid attack against Lithuania”.
“Frankly, there is no longer any need to send balloons into Lithuania – Lithuanians are organising a hybrid attack against themselves,” Nausėda said. “And not to our benefit.”
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He said the legislative process had become disorganised, with what he described as comic proposals emerging from multiple sides, warning that political chaos could have serious consequences.
“Our boat in the geopolitical ocean is small enough that we cannot afford to sit and rock it,” Nausėda said.
Nausėda said he does not understand why the amendments must be adopted in haste through extraordinary parliamentary sessions, noting that a commission had been appointed to conduct a legal assessment that could have been awaited.
“We are now at a point where returning to the starting position is quite difficult,” he said. “But I want this process to be managed. Let us step away from emotions – Lithuania least of all needs this kind of internal confrontation today.”
The president said he plans to discuss the issue Monday with leaders of all parliamentary factions and the speaker of parliament in an effort to find a way out of the crisis.
Parliament is set to decide Thursday on the proposed amendments put forward by ruling parties that would simplify the procedure for dismissing LRT’s director general. The proposals have drawn criticism from journalists, civil society groups and nongovernmental organisations, and have sparked public protests.
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