Key developments in Lithuanian cultural policy in recent years are related to the cultural funding institutions, i.e. Council for Culture, the Press, Radio and Television Support Foundation and Lithuanian Culture Institute.
In 2021, the Lithuanian parliament changed the Law on the Council for Lithuanian Culture (2012) and diminished the financial independence of the Council. Until 2021, the funding of the Council was carried out through the Culture Support Fund, which was comprised of the following: 1) 3 per cent of the income received from the excise duty levied on alcoholic beverages and processed tobacco; 2) 10 per cent of the proceeds received from the lottery and gambling tax; 3) other lawfully acquired resources. This funding regulation secured the financial independence of the Council since the amount of its finances did not depend on the will of politicians and could not be manipulated. A similar funding regulation is established for the Lithuanian National Broadcasting Company (LRT), which is calculated automatically as a fixed percentage of the state’s tax revenue and cannot be revised by the government every year. The State allocates to LRT 1% of personal income tax and 1.3% of excise duties collected.
In 2020, the Government of the Republic of Lithuania asked the Constitutional Court to clarify whether these forming principles of the Culture Support Fund and the budget of LRT do not contradict its constitutional right to propose a budget to the Parliament, taking into account the current social and economic situation of the country. In the LRT case, the court stated that this legal regulation protects the institutional and editorial independence of the national broadcaster and is a way to shield it from political pressures. This argument, however, was not applied to the funding of the Lithuanian Council for Culture and in 2021, the Ministry abolished the Culture Support Fund and changed the Law on the Council for Lithuanian Culture (2021) respectively. According to the new edition of the Law, the funds of the Council consist of the appropriations of the state budget. The amount is decided by the government. Thus, the main decisions regarding the budget of the Council depend on the will of the Ministry of Culture.
In 2022, the Ministry of Culture changed the regulations of the Lithuanian Culture Institute. The new regulations give the institute a new function in the distribution of funding. From the beginning of 2023, the Institute began to operate under new regulations and allocates state funding for the dissemination of national culture abroad, controls the use of funding and accounting for it.
In 2023, the Ministry of Culture proposed to amend the Law on the Provision of Information to the Public, and to abolish the Press, Radio and Television Support Fund and establish a new Media Support Fund. In January 2024, the Press, Radio and Television Support Fund was abolished, and a new Media Foundation was launched. The Fund supports projects through calls for tenders in the areas of news, investigative and educational journalism, cultural media, regional media, media of national minorities and diaspora, as well as other programmes prepared by the Foundation Council. The Foundation’s budget consists of state budget allocations and, in 2024, amounted to approximately 6.5 million Euros.
Evaluated from the standpoint of operational independence, the statutes of the new Media Support Fund (MRF) exhibit several advantages over those of its predecessor. Funding decisions are taken by the Fund’s Council, which is required to base its determinations on expert evaluations; any departure must be explicitly justified in the minutes, and both decisions and expert reports must be published. The MRF also establishes a more robust framework for expert selection and conflict-of-interest management: experts are ineligible if they are state officials, politicians, members of the LRT Council or Commission, Fund staff, or media managers; they must declare interests and sign confidentiality undertakings. The expert selection procedure is open and codified. Taken together, these provisions position the MRF to operate at greater ‘arm’s-length’ precisely where it matters most—grant decisions—through stringent conflict of interest safeguards and mandatory transparency regarding expert input.
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