Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2024 – Country Notes: Lithuania

Contextual factors

 

State structure	Executive power	Legislative system	Legal system
Unitary	Parliamentary	Unicameral	Civil law

Strategy and institutions on anti-corruption and public integrity

The National Anti-Corruption Agenda (2022-2033) was adopted at the central government level. The strategy identifies one major objective: to create a corruption-resilient environment in the public and private sectors. Beneath this objective there are three sub-objectives: 1) Strengthen anti-corruption attitudes and develop anti-corruption competences; 2) Achieve sustainable political, managerial, administrative and financial solutions resistant to undue influence, as well as quality public and administrative services; 3) Achieve effective control of corruption and the impartial, objective administration of justice and the rule of law. Subsequently, the strategic framework identifies several progress targets.

The Special Investigation Service is the central independent body responsible for implementing the strategy, while the Central Electoral Commission (hereinafter VTEK) monitors political finance, lobbying and conflict-of-interest. Lithuania has an entity responsible for open data policy (Information Society Development Committee) and a central harmonisation unit for internal control and audit within the Ministry of Finance.

Overview

 

Greatest strengths	Areas to improve
Anti-corruption strategy	Transparency of public information - regulation
Conflict of interest	Transparency of public information - implementation
Corruption risk management and audit	Post-public employment integrity

Anti-corruption strategy

The Lithuanian strategic framework for anti-corruption and public integrity is a top performer among OECD countries, as the 2022-2033 Anti-Corruption Agenda includes all of the following: a situation analysis, including identification of current public integrity risks, outcome-level indicators and target values for the public integrity objectives, references to international legal instruments on anti-corruption and public integrity.

Implementation of the strategy is supported by a series of action plans, with the current action plan covering the period 2023-2025. The action plan refers to a variety of data sources, identifies lead organisations for each action, and contains outcome-level indicators with target values. While monitoring reports for this action plan are not yet available, monitoring reports for the previous action plan under the previous strategy were published online annually. As of the 2022 monitoring report, Lithuania had implemented 54% of planned actions. It is worth noting, however, that Lithuania did not produce or publish an end-of-term evaluation report for the previous strategy.

Corruption risk management and audit

As measured against OECD standards on risk management, which include internal control and internal audit, Lithuania fulfils 100% of criteria on regulations and 77% of criteria on practice, compared to the OECD average of 67% and 33%, respectively.

Lithuania has the best performing internal control and risk management system of all OECD countries. The robust framework for managing corruption risks and successful central harmonisation of good practices for internal audit and risk management are noteworthy.

Alongside a strong internal audit system both in regulations and practice, Lithuania has a central harmonisation unit, which promotes international standards and best practices in internal audit across the public sector. Lithuania is the top performer among OECD countries in the adoption rate of internal audit recommendations, with 98% of recommendations made during the previous across the public sector adopted by management within one year. Similarly, 95% of recommendations were implemented within one year. However, Lithuania only 63% of public organisations were internally audited in the past five years.

Lobbying

As measured against OECD standards on lobbying, Lithuania fulfils 75% of criteria on regulations, and 78% of criteria in practice, compared to the OECD average of 38% and 35%, respectively. In this sense, Lithuania is one of the top performers in the OECD.

Regulations include a mandatory cooling-off period for public officials and sanctions proportional to the severity of the offence. Lithuania also has a publicly available lobbying register providing information on the name, organisation and domain of intervention of interest of representatives. The Chief Official Ethics Commission supervises lobbying activities and carries out investigations for non-compliance.

Conflict of interest

As measured against OECD standards on conflict of interest, Lithuania fulfils 100% of regulatory safeguards in place, and has implemented 89% of safeguards in practice, compared to the OECD average of 76% and 40%, respectively.

Lithuania is one of the top performers in this area. The regulatory framework includes obligations to submit interest declarations for all elected officials, judges and civil servants. Regulations also establish personal liability for electoral candidates who breach the rules and sanctions proportional to the severity of the offence. Moreover, all ministers, members of the Seimas, and members of the highest bodies of the judiciary submitted their interest declarations over the past six years, as did than 80% of senior civil servants. VTEK oversees a risk-based approach to verifying the content declarations, issues recommendations for the resolution of conflict-of-interest situations, and has issued sanctions in several cases.

Political finance

As measured against OECD standards on political finance, Lithuania fulfils 90% of criteria on regulations, and 86% of criteria on practice, compared to the OECD average of 73% and 58%. respectively.

In Lithuania, regulations ban anonymous donations, contributions from foreign states and enterprises, and contributions from state-owned enterprises. There are also ceilings on personal contributions to electoral campaigns, and parties must submit annual and electoral financial reports. In practice, in the past five years all parties represented in Parliament submitted annual and electoral financial reports in line with statutory deadlines. VTEK publishes the reports on a user-friendly platform and can sanction parties who don't comply with regulations on political finance.

Transparency of public information

As measured against OECD standards on public information, which include access to information and open data, Lithuania fulfils 67% of criteria related to regulations, and 69% related to practice, while the OECD average is 67% and 62%, respectively.

Lithuania has a generally comprehensive access to information law, but it does not guarantee the right to access information to non-EU/EEA citizens. Despite the existence of a central government unit for open data policy (Information Society Development Committee, subordinate to the Ministry of Economy and Innovation), Lithuania does not have a supervisory body responsible for issues concerning access to information. Thus, there is no institution dedicated to access to information which can be appealed to and can sanction the public administration for non-compliance.

In practice Lithuania proactively publishes a long list of key integrity-related datasets, including agendas and minutes of Government sessions, ministers’ individual agendas, consolidated versions of primary laws, aggregated data on lobbying, data on public tenders, the business and land registries, and asset and interest declarations. There is however no aggregated data available on access to information requests.