Vilnius district mayor rejects direct rule after council fails to meet again

Vilnius District Mayor Robert Duchnevičius said direct rule is not being considered after the municipal council failed to meet for a second time this month, LRT reported. The meeting was cancelled because there was no quorum after members of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania-Christian Families Alliance faction did not attend.

Duchnevičius told BNS on Monday that he believed the situation could still be resolved through dialogue and another council meeting. He called direct rule a “very radical” step and said the council had not yet failed to convene three times, among other circumstances that would need to arise before such a decision could be considered.

The council was due to discuss renaming streets named after Henryk Gulbinowicz, a Polish cleric who was punished for paedophilia. Politicians from the alliance faction oppose the changes. The administration has proposed renaming the street in Buivydžiai local administrative district Buivydžiai Street, and the street in Nemenčinė Gabriel Jan Mincevičius Street.

The next council meeting has been called for Friday, October 16, at the faction’s request. Duchnevičius said he hoped it would go ahead and that the issues would be resolved. Teresa Demeško, deputy head of the faction, said its members had been unable to attend for objective reasons: six could not be there in person and two were ill. She said the absences were not intended to boycott particular items. The faction plans to attend the next meeting, she said.

Duchnevičius said the repeated cancellations were preventing decisions important to residents, including a budget reallocation, the use of funds, ongoing projects and road paving. He also said the municipal utility company in Nemenčinė needed approval for a credit line linked to its current account. Without the decision, payments could be blocked under the contract and heating services could be disrupted, he said.

The council has also named Gulbinowicz an honorary citizen of the district. He was born in Šukiškės village and became an archbishop of Wrocław before being made a cardinal in 1985. The Vatican imposed disciplinary sanctions on him in 2020 over multiple cases of sexual abuse of minors, concealing clerical paedophilia crimes and 16 years of cooperation with the security service of the Polish People’s Republic. He died in November 2020.