LRT council warns director over breach as members question ruling

LRT, Lithuania’s public broadcaster, reported that its council has found Director General Monika Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė in breach of her duties, but issued a warning rather than dismissing her.

“In football terms, this is a yellow card, a warning. It cannot be considered a serious breach,” council chairman Mindaugas Jurkynas said.

The council also recommended that Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė pay particular attention to transparency and accountability in LRT procurement while exercising her powers.

The decision does not remove her from office. Jurkynas said dismissal could be considered if she is found to have committed another similar breach within 12 months.

Jurkynas declined to say how many council members voted in favour of the decision, saying the number would be recorded in minutes that are not public. Four members declined to take part in the vote.

Council members question resolution

Council member Deimantas Jastramskis said 11 members attended the meeting in person, while one female member had submitted her vote in advance. He said he, Daiva Daugirdienė, Vita Akstinaitė and Dainius Žvirdauskas did not take voting papers or vote because they disagreed with the wording of the resolution.

“It is not precise. There are contradictions with legal acts, the LRT law and the Labour Code. It is difficult to understand why colleagues and lawyers prepared such a document,” Jastramskis said.

He said members had also tried to establish who had drafted the resolution, but the document appeared anonymous in that respect. According to Jastramskis, Jurkynas eventually acknowledged that he had prepared it.

“In my view, the document is very poorly prepared. It contains inconsistencies and flaws in the logic of the text,” Jastramskis said.

Director considers next steps

Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė said she would consider her next steps, noting that challenging the decision in court could be difficult.

She called the decision unlawful in several respects, citing both its content and missed deadlines. She said she had not been given proper legal protection and that her lawyer had not been allowed to attend the meeting in person.

Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė also said Jurkynas had signed a letter to the Lithuanian parliament in April supporting the decision not to publish the names of the authors and suppliers involved.

“I see this simply as pressure and an attempt to make me obedient. The way is being paved for my dismissal,” she said.

The council considered the director’s responsibility after prosecutors found in the summer that LRT had violated the institution’s operating and accountability principles and the public’s right to know how public money was used by failing earlier this year to disclose 2025 data on service providers.

Jurkynas previously told BNS that after prosecutors established the breaches, the council was obliged to determine who was responsible for them. Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė’s lawyer, Tomas Bagdanskis, said the prosecutors’ finding did not by itself mean that the director was responsible, noting that the LRT council had also taken part in the decision not to publish the data.