Hotels and restaurants in Vilnius to go dark
Starting June 11, hotels and restaurants in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, will begin protesting the increase in the value-added tax rate to 19 percent. From 10 p.m. to midnight, electricity will be turned off in the city's hotels and cafés, and restaurants will stop playing music. Guests and visitors will be served by candlelight. An international investment forum is being held in Vilnius that day.
Restaurant Vilnius
Date: 30/09/2026
Similar actions are planned to continue on June 29, when the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly is being held in Vilnius. The third phase is scheduled for July 5, when Lithuania will celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of the first mention of the word „Lithuania“. The protest will be held under the slogan: „Lithuania is closing down! We are turning back time by 1,000 years“. If nothing changes, these actions could turn into a general strike.
Hotel and restaurant industry representatives are outraged by the abolition of the preferential 5-percent value-added tax rate and the introduction of a new rate of up to 19 percent on January 1. According to Ewalda Schischkauskene, president of the Lithuanian Association of Hotels and Restaurants, they decided to take this action out of sheer desperation. Preliminary estimates show that in the first half of 2009, restaurant turnover fell by 40 percent, while hotel room occupancy dropped by 25 percent. About 10,000 people have lost their jobs in this sector. If nothing changes, nearly 20 tourism businesses could close by the end of this year.
However, in 22 European Union countries, restaurant and hotel services are subject to a preferential value-added tax rate; in 20 of them, this tax does not exceed 10 percent.
Photo: Loisy/www.flickr.com
