On March 12, the new version of the law on the governance of Lithuania’s public broadcaster LRT will be put to a vote in Parliament, while the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe has just expressed its concern about the recent amendments. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joins its affiliate in Lithuania, the Association of Professional Journalists (ŽPA), in opposing the bill and calling on the authorities to abandon their plans to freeze the public broadcaster’s funding and change the procedure governing the dismissal of the Director General.

The Venice Commission is an advisory body that provides legal counsel to states seeking to align their legal and institutional frameworks with European and international standards in the fields of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. In its report, the Venice Commission warned that the legislative process surrounding LRT, in particular, the amendments concerning the funding of the broadcaster, was “not consistent with European good practices in good law-making”. It noted that the proposed reform to the LRT’s funding model was submitted two weeks before adoption, without a revised explanatory memorandum or an impact assessment. The brevity of the legislative process, and the lack of transparency and engagement with LRT, alarmingly “deprived the broadcaster of any opportunity to adapt its planning, creating a foreseeable risk that it will lack the resources necessary to fulfill its public service remit.”

“Freezing the funding of the public broadcasting service places direct pressure on independent journalism and hinders the forming of free and informed opinions. At a time when social media platforms remain largely unregulated, this represents a particularly dangerous development,” said Christiana Jankovics, member of EFJ’s Broadcasting Expert Group (BREG).

On November 25, 2025, Lithuanian lawmakers had previously voted to freeze LRT’s annual budget at €79.6 million for 2026, 2027, and 2028, overriding the existing mechanism that would have increased the broadcaster’s funding by roughly 11% next year, according to LRT.

The Venice Commission also criticized the fast-tracking of amendments related to the dismissal of the Director General under an urgent parliamentary procedure, despite this being reserved for exceptional circumstances under the Statute of the Seimas. It warned that the proposed grounds for dismissal were still too vague and could lead to politically motivated dismissals. In particular, permitting the non-approval of the broadcaster’s annual activity report to constitute grounds for dismissal could subject LRT to political pressure arising from editorial disputes.

These amendments were first introduced in December 2025 and led to a series of protests over free speech and media freedom. The EFJ and its MFRR partners had previously warned that the changes risked weakening LRT’s editorial independence and disrupting its sustainable financing.

Despite repeated warnings, the Seimas began working on a revised draft of the amendments package on February 26, without waiting for the publication of the Venice Commission’s report.

The new draft law, developed by a parliamentary working group, was much broader than the previous package and did not address key public concerns. Particularly, the draft law maintained the freezing of LRT’s funding and the vague provisions regarding the dismissal of the Director General. The draft also expands the Council’s powers to control the content produced by representatives of other media organizations at LRT, which constitutes editorial interference and poses a serious risk of censorship for independent journalists producing content through other channels.

Birutė Davidonytė, head of the Association of Professional Journalists (ŽPA) denounced “direct censorship and a desire to remove critical voices from the airwaves.” Davidonytė believes that the new package is far worse than the initially proposed amendments, as it still does not comply with the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA).

Among the recommendations, the Venice Commission calls for a review of the funding mechanism of LRT to be made in close consultation with the LRT and other stakeholders concerned, for clear and objective criteria for the early dismissal of the LRT Director General, and for the conduction of a thorough analysis, impact assessment, and consultations with the national stakeholders for the continuation of the pending legislative process.