Lithuanian parliament opens autumn session with security and demographics on agenda

Lithuania’s parliament will convene for the first sitting of its autumn session on Thursday, with more than 550 legislative proposals on the draft agenda, LRT reported.

Parliament Speaker Juozas Olekas has said the session, which will run until December 23, will focus particularly on security, defence, resilience and demographic challenges. These include increasing the birth rate, encouraging the diaspora to return to Lithuania and managing migration.

More than 330 of the proposals in the draft programme were submitted by members of parliament. Among other issues, lawmakers are expected to consider removing from the Constitution a provision concerning the deployment of nuclear weapons in Lithuania and approving an updated National Security Strategy.

Parliament will also consider a proposal to hold the 2027 elections for mayors and municipal councils on March 7, as well as amendments to establish a public register of sex offenders.

During the session, lawmakers are also expected to approve next year’s budget. Ruling party leaders said last week that they had not yet determined how much funding would be allocated to defence, but pledged that Lithuania would remain in the so-called 5 percent club. President Gitanas Nausėda has said he expects the defence budget to be larger in euros next year than this year.

Lithuania has planned to allocate 5.38 percent of gross domestic product, or about 4.8 billion euros, to defence in this year’s budget.

The government has proposed 127 legislative projects for inclusion in the session programme. The priorities include a family policy package aimed at increasing the birth rate, improving child-care benefits and helping young families buy homes.

Other planned measures include increasing the number of conscripts, introducing universal free meals for primary school pupils, raising researchers’ salaries, establishing a free economic zone in Visaginas, limiting how often fuel prices can be increased, and simplifying public procurement and civil service regulations.

Ten of the projects under consideration were submitted by Nausėda. They include proposals to clarify the additional funding available for indexing an additional individual social insurance pension component, introduce a conditional temporary zero personal income tax rate after the birth of a second or subsequent child, and establish targeted funding for basic regional healthcare services.

The autumn session is scheduled to include 46 sittings, three of which will be dedicated to the agendas of opposition parliamentary groups. Lithuania’s parliament holds two sessions each year, in spring and autumn.