For an employee leaving employment, a claim for reimbursement of training costs is valid only in two cases: where the employment contract is terminated at the employer’s initiative due to the employee’s fault, or at the employee’s initiative without important reasons. In all other cases, including termination by mutual agreement, at the employer’s initiative without fault, at the employee’s initiative for important reasons, or upon expiry of a fixed-term contract, repayment of training costs may not be required, irrespective of the amount stated in the agreement. The precise legal issue is whether, in the specific case, the agreement on reimbursement of training costs complies with Article 37 of the Law on the Approval, Entry into Force and Implementation of the Labour Code of the Republic of Lithuania, which defines three limits for such an agreement: the ground for dismissal, the nature of reimbursable costs, and the period within which costs may be claimed.
Under Article 37(1), an agreement on reimbursement of training or professional development costs is permissible only where the employment contract is terminated at the employer’s initiative due to the employee’s fault or at the employee’s initiative without important reasons. The second limit concerns the nature of the costs: under Article 37(2), only costs related to the provision of knowledge or skills exceeding the requirements of the work activity are reimbursable; business travel expenses, including travel and accommodation, are included only if this is provided for in the agreement. Training mandatory for the performance of the job function, including occupational safety and health instruction carried out during working time and financed by the employer, does not fall within such an agreement. The third limit is time: under Article 37(3), only costs incurred by the employer during the last two years before termination of the employment contract are reimbursable; a collective agreement may set a different period, but not exceeding three years. Occupational safety training costs financed by the employer are also not treated as a benefit in kind received by the employee under Article 9(1)(3) and (4) of the Law on Personal Income Tax, where the benefit is related to the performance of work functions or to training through which a qualification is acquired. A special rule applies in the case of studies: under Article 37(4), where an employee studies on their own initiative in pursuit of a bachelor’s or master’s degree or a professional qualification under formal vocational training programmes, and the employer pays all or at least half of the costs, the parties may additionally agree that, during the studies and for three years thereafter, the employee may terminate the contract at their own initiative without important reasons only after reimbursing the costs. A separate regime for apprenticeship contracts is set out in Article 83(4): no more than 20 percent of the apprentice’s monthly remuneration may be allocated to reimbursement of training costs, with payment spread evenly over the entire term of the contract. In a dispute, a non-compliant agreement should be regarded as having no legal effect to the extent that it provides more broadly than permitted by law; if the employee is dismissed unlawfully, the mechanism under Article 218(2) also applies, namely reinstatement with an award of average remuneration for the period of forced absence, for no longer than one year.
For the employer, this means that the agreement protects only against the employee’s unilateral departure without important reasons; in other cases, for example dismissal at the employer’s will without fault, the employee can successfully defend against such a claim in a dispute. For the employee, before signing, it is practically important to assess: whether the training provides knowledge or skills exceeding the requirements of the work activity; whether the agreement states that business travel expenses are included; whether the costs were incurred during the last two years, or another period set by a collective agreement but not exceeding three years; and, if studying under formal vocational training programmes, whether the employer pays all or at least half of the costs, because only then can an additional three-year obligation be imposed. An improperly concluded agreement may be challenged by the employee before labour dispute resolution bodies, and a dismissal found to be unlawful would trigger the consequences provided for in Article 218(2): reinstatement and an award of average remuneration. The lawfulness of a specific claim will be determined by the labour dispute resolution body or court, having regard to the text of the agreement and the content of the training.
In this matter, legal liability is determined not by the fact of bullying itself, but by who publishes it and where: due to age, a child would often fall outside the scope of criminal liability, but the sources provided disclose another, rarely publicly identified direction for the application of sanctions: not against the child, but against the platform on which the bullying content remains accessible. The principal legal issue is which rules protect the victim from cyberbullying and sexualised content, and against whom those rules provide for sanctions, under Article 791 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Republic of Lithuania, Article 154 of the Criminal Code, and Article 481 of the Code of Administrative Offences.
Each of these provisions operates at a different point in the chain: Article 791 of the Code of Administrative Offences is directed at the provider of electronic information hosting services or the operator of public communications networks: if the Communications Regulatory Authority of Lithuania orders the removal of visual information constituting cyberbullying, or information prohibited under the Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information, and that order is not complied with, a fine is imposed.
Under Article 307(3) of the Code of Administrative Offences, a repeated offence entails a fine of EUR 300–500 for individuals and EUR 600–900 for managers of legal persons or other responsible persons.
Article 95-2 of the Law on Environmental Protection establishes a fine of EUR 900–1,900 for breaches of vehicle maintenance and repair requirements, and EUR 1,900–3,800 for repeated breaches.
Drivers and carriers operating vehicles with disabled or removed exhaust gas treatment equipment currently face a real risk of administrative liability under Article 307 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Republic of Lithuania, and, in the future, also the annulment of the validity of mandatory roadworthiness inspection documents and remote emissions monitoring. Enforcement is shifting from inspections of stationary vehicles to the recording of emissions while vehicles are in motion: under the implementation plan approved by Government Resolution No. 895 of 10 December 2025, by Q4 2027 it is planned to “create a remote vehicle emissions monitoring system and regulatory measures to ensure the operation of technically roadworthy vehicles”. The legal position is determined under Article 307 of the Code of Administrative Offences, Article 10 of the Law on Road Traffic Safety, and Article 11 of the Law on the Fundamentals of Transport Activities, pursuant to which transport operators must comply with environmental requirements and are liable for non-compliance in accordance with the procedure established by law.
Article 307 of the Code of Administrative Offences establishes the liability framework:
Practical consequences:
The regulation was initiated by the Ministry of Transport and Communications (the draft was prepared by specialists of the Road Safety Division of its Road Transport and Civil Aviation Policy Department). The aim was to enshrine in law the essential conditions and prohibitions governing economic activities related to vehicle roadworthiness testing and expert examinations, and to authorise the Ministry to approve technical requirements for liquefied petroleum gas and compressed natural gas equipment and its installation in motor vehicles. The principal rationale was the need to establish requirements for undertakings carrying out mandatory roadworthiness testing, as well as for inspectors and experts, so that control of technical condition would be coherent and would also take account of aspects such as the installation of gas equipment, which other forms of control may fail to detect. No objections are reflected in the documents, apart from editorial amendments concerning references to the Code of Administrative Offences.
By Government resolution, it has been established that the provisions of the Law on Public Procurement in the Fields of Defence and Security do not apply where the Defence Resources Agency procures unmanned aircraft, counter-drone systems, optical surveillance devices and laser target designators.
In response to specific airspace infringements, Article 181(1) of the Law on Aviation obliges the Commander of the Armed Forces to submit a request to the air navigation service provider to activate a restricted area and, once the relevant circumstances cease to exist, to request its deactivation.
In Lithuania, the integrated counter-drone system for which the Minister of National Defence has set an end-2027 deadline, with the aim of shortening it to mid-2027, will be developed under existing statutory competences, but its procurement is, in substance, removed from the ordinary public procurement rules. The real legal question is under what procedure institutions of the national defence system may acquire drones, counter-drone systems and surveillance equipment, and how airspace may be restricted while such systems are not yet in place. The key provisions are Article 18 of the Law on Aviation of the Republic of Lithuania (establishment of prohibited and restricted areas), Article 16(9) and (10) of that law (procedure for the use of state unmanned aircraft), Article 2(4) of the Law on the Organisation of the National Defence System and Military Service, under which the airspace surveillance, control and defence system is developed as part of NATO’s integrated system, and Government resolutions concerning the application of Article 346(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to defence procurements.
Two special exemptions apply to procurement: by Government resolution, it has been established that the provisions of the Law on Public Procurement in the Fields of Defence and Security do not apply where the Defence Resources Agency under the Ministry of National Defence procures unmanned aircraft, counter-drone systems, optical surveillance devices and laser target designators, provided that the suppliers are economic operators manufacturing or assembling in Lithuania, including UAB “NT Service” (counter-drone systems) and UAB “Brolis semiconductors” (optical surveillance devices). An analogous exemption was applied by Resolution No. 884 of 23 October 2024 to reconnaissance unmanned aircraft and maritime drones. In both cases, the Government identifies essential national security interests as the basis under Article 346(1) TFEU, meaning that procurements may be carried out directly, without competitive tender procedures. On the surveillance side, the applicable framework is determined by the allocation of competences: the rules on the organisation of airspace are prepared by the Lithuanian Transport Safety Administration and the Commander of the Armed Forces and approved by the Government (Article 18(1) of the Law on Aviation), while the Minister of Transport and Communications, on public-safety grounds, establishes prohibited, restricted or danger areas only on the basis of a submission by the Lithuanian Transport Safety Administration coordinated with the Commander of the Armed Forces; prohibitions may not remain in force for longer than required by the reasons that gave rise to them (Article 18(3)). In response to specific airspace infringements, for example a drone entering Lithuanian territory, Article 181(1) of the Law on Aviation obliges the Commander of the Armed Forces to submit a request to the air navigation service provider to activate a restricted area and, once the relevant circumstances cease to exist, to request its deactivation; this is a flexible, incident-based mechanism that operates even in the absence of a permanent counter-drone system. The procedure for the use of state unmanned aircraft operated by institutions of the national defence system is established by the Commander of the Armed Forces (Article 16(10)); accordingly, the operating rules for the future system’s sensors and measures will depend on acts of the Commander of the Armed Forces, not on the civil aviation registration regime.
In practical terms, this means that during the development of the system the only legally prescribed method for responding to drone infringements remains the targeted identification of airspace violations and the activation of restricted areas under the procedure in Article 181(1). Procurement will not involve published tenders: the Defence Resources Agency may conclude contracts directly with the specified Lithuanian manufacturers, which reduces transparency controls over procurement but shortens implementation timelines. The EUR 5 million state order for the development of an integrated sensor system is likewise proceeding under the special rules for defence procurement. Three levels of control can be distinguished: proposals by the Lithuanian Transport Safety Administration and the Commander of the Armed Forces to the Government concerning permanent areas; the initiative of the Commander of the Armed Forces concerning incident-based restricted areas; and acts of the Commander of the Armed Forces concerning the use of military drones. Monitoring point: it is worth observing whether the Government adopts new resolutions operating on the basis of Article 346 TFEU in relation to the procurement of components for the large-scale integrated system, and whether permanent prohibited areas along the border with Kaliningrad are established on the basis of submissions by the Lithuanian Transport Safety Administration.
Under the current Article 3.205(1) of the Civil Code, adult children are obliged to maintain their incapacitated parents who require support; maintenance is paid by agreement or, upon a claim brought by the parents, by court judgment.
Article 3.206(2) of the Civil Code establishes an absolute prohibition: parents have no right to maintenance if the children were permanently separated from them due to the parents’ own fault.
The legal position of adult children whose parents have grossly breached their duties will change only if the Seimas adopts the amendments to the Civil Code initiated by D. Razmislevičius. The system currently in force allows a court to release a child from the duty to maintain his or her parents, but this is a matter of judicial discretion, not an automatic prohibition. The precise legal issue is whether the proposed amendment to Article 3.206 of the Civil Code, expanding the list of circumstances in which parents have no right to maintenance, is compatible with the duty of adult children to maintain incapacitated parents established in Article 3.205 of the Civil Code, and what hierarchy between these provisions would apply depending on the option chosen.
The current exception is narrow: Article 3.206(1) of the Civil Code gives the court the right to release a child from the obligation if the parents avoided performing their duties towards their minor children, while paragraph 2 establishes an absolute prohibition: parents have no right to maintenance if the children were permanently separated from them due to the parents’ own fault. The draft proposes to transform paragraph 1 into a broader list of grounds, including:
The sceptical position, represented by V. Gailius, is based on the view that courts may already release a child under the current wording of Article 3.206(1) of the Civil Code, because “avoided performing their duties” is an evaluative concept that also covers malicious non-payment of child support. Members of Parliament who supported the draft, including V. Šeršniovas, emphasise that many factual violations, such as expelling young children from the home in winter, are not formally recorded and therefore cannot be relied on by the child as evidence. From an international perspective, Article 10 of the Convention on the Law Applicable to Maintenance Obligations provides that the law applicable to a maintenance obligation determines whether a person may claim maintenance, in what amount, and from whom. This means that Lithuanian courts, when deciding cases concerning Lithuanian citizens, will apply the provisions of the Civil Code, and the amendments would alter that applicable law.
If the amendments are adopted, adult children will no longer need to prove that their parents “avoided” their duties; it will be sufficient to establish one of the expanded circumstances, and the parent will lose the right to maintenance under Article 3.205 of the Civil Code. Until the law is adopted, children whose parents claim maintenance must seek release from that obligation on the basis of Article 3.206(1) of the Civil Code and submit the relevant evidence in court.
The draft laws were initiated in implementation of the 2018 reform of the child rights protection system, under which child rights protection functions were transferred from municipal child rights protection bodies and conditions were created for the operation of the updated system. The objective is to align the provisions of the Civil Code, the Code of Civil Procedure, the Code of Administrative Offences, the Law on Social Services, the Law on Protection against Domestic Violence, and the Law on Minimum and Medium Care of the Child with the amendments to child rights protection and local self-government legislation that have already entered into force. The explanatory notes to the drafts emphasise that the reform is intended to improve the quality of child rights protection and ensure a coherent legal framework; however, the documents submitted reflect the position of the initiators and do not provide grounds to conclude that the authorities are interfering in parent-child relationships. The regulation is directly connected with the protection of children’s rights and the prevention of violence.
The court may release children from the obligation if the parents evaded the performance of their duties towards them while they were minors (Article 3.206(1) of the Civil Code); where children were permanently separated due to the parents’ fault, the parents have no right to maintenance (Article 3.206(2)).
If the law were adopted, in maintenance claims under Article 3.205 of the Civil Code courts would assess not only circumstances of evasion, but also the fact of violence, the issuance of a protection order, restriction of parental authority, or addictions.
The proposed amendment to the Civil Code seeks to prevent parents who evaded their duty to maintain their children or used violence against them from obtaining maintenance from their adult children in old age. At present, that possibility is limited: Article 3.206 of the Civil Code allows a court to release children from the obligation only where the parents “evaded the performance of their duties towards their minor children”, while only children permanently separated due to the parents’ fault are entirely excluded from the parents’ right to maintenance. The legal question is whether the list of grounds set out in Article 3.206(2) of the Civil Code should be expanded by adding violence, the issuance of a protection order, alcohol abuse, and restriction of parental authority. The matter will be decided by applying Article 3.205 of the Civil Code together with the exceptions under Article 3.206.
The current regulation establishes the following framework:
The parents’ duty to provide material maintenance to minor children is established in Article 3.192 of the Civil Code and continues even where the child has been separated or parental authority has been restricted (Article 3.195 of the Civil Code). This is significant because the amendments also provide for the exclusion of parents whose parental authority was restricted. Article 3.204(3) of the Civil Code grants the State a right of recourse to recover from parents maintenance funds provided by the State, meaning that the State already has a mechanism for responding to defaulting parents. However, as regards an adult child, liability has so far depended solely on the court’s discretion under Article 3.206. The draft would replace that discretion with rules on consequences: parents falling within the proposed circumstances would have no right to maintenance at all. Some of the proposed circumstances already formally fall within the concept of “evasion” used in Article 3.206(1), which is why some members of the Seimas, including V. Gailius, argue that courts already address this issue under the current law; V. Šeršniovas, by contrast, urged that the possibility of release from the obligation be considered also in the context of the Catholic tradition.
At the presentation stage, the draft received 61 votes in favour, 1 against, and 27 abstentions.
The legal assessment of two recent drone incidents, one involving a drone that crossed Lithuanian territory and another that was shot down by an Italian Eurofighter aircraft, currently overlaps with Lithuania’s plan to establish a counter-drone system by mid- or late 2027 and to create a new division. The essential question is which institutional procedure and which statutory provisions govern the response to airspace violations, and in what legal form the development of defence capabilities is implemented. The principal provisions by which this issue will be assessed are Articles 3 and 9 of the Republic of Lithuania Law on the Organisation of the National Defence System and Military Service, Articles 16 and 18 of the Republic of Lithuania Law on Aviation, the Republic of Lithuania Law on the Basics of National Security, and the Treaty between the Republic of Lithuania and the Republic of Poland on the Establishment of the Baltic Functional Airspace Block. The latter instrument is particularly relevant because Poland has priority in investigating the recovered drone that also crossed Lithuanian territory.
Under Article 3(1) of the Law on the Organisation of the National Defence System and Military Service, the national defence system consists of the Ministry of National Defence, the armed forces, the intelligence institution (the Second Investigation Department), military territories, and established enterprises. Accordingly, the counter-drone system and the new division will have to be incorporated through this structure. The same is confirmed by the Law on the Basics of National Security: the principal structure of the armed forces, including the composition and tasks of the branches of the forces, is approved by the Seimas upon submission by the Minister of National Defence, after approval by the State Defence Council and authorisation by the Government. In peacetime, as provided in Article 18 of the Law on the Basics of National Security, the armed forces protect the territory and airspace of the State and maintain combat readiness, while in cases of airspace violations the procedures set out in Article 18 of the Law on Aviation apply. Article 18(3) of the Law on Aviation provides that the Minister of Transport and Communications, upon a proposal by the Lithuanian Transport Safety Administration coordinated with the Commander of the Armed Forces, may establish prohibited, restricted, or danger areas in response to airspace violations. Responsibility for operational air traffic, namely flights by military aircraft, is assigned under Article 18(2) of the Law on Aviation to the Commander of the Armed Forces together with the Lithuanian Transport Safety Administration; this is the institutional chain that would take a decision on a shoot-down. From an international perspective, the Treaty between Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic Functional Airspace Block is significant: Article 20(1) allows each party to apply any measures necessary to safeguard security and defence interests, while paragraph 2 provides for the possibility of concluding written arrangements concerning military operations in common airspace. This explains why priority in investigative actions regarding the recovered drone is assigned to Poland and why cooperation between intelligence officials is taking place. Restrictions on information for official use, established in Article 102 of the Law on the Organisation of the National Defence System and Military Service, limit the extent to which information about the drone investigation and capability development may be disclosed publicly.
The practical consequences for Lithuania arise in several directions, depending on whether the drone incidents are qualified as separate violations or as part of a broader strategy of provocation: