LithuaniaEtar
Storm-hit rural and heritage grantees spared sanctions for 2026
Agriculture Order No. 3D-447 of 16 September 2026 waives sanctions for 2026 rural-community and heritage grantees whose failures stem from force majeure in the August storm emergency.
By Taxxa AI OyPublished 16 September 2026
The Minister of Agriculture has waived sanctions for 2026 state-budget-funded projects whose obligations were disrupted by the August 2026 storm.E TAR Order No. 3D-447 of 16 September 2026, signed by minister Kęstutis Mažeika, covers applicants and beneficiaries under three schemes: the national support rules for rural community activities (Order No. 3D-847 of 13 December 2023), the national heritage activity financing rules (Order No. 3D-398 of 29 May 2009) and the heritage-product creators' cooperation financing rules (Order No. 3D-649 of 10 October 2023).
Assessors must take into account the circumstances stated and substantiated in applicants' requests where those circumstances relate to the state-level emergency declared by Government Resolution No. 617 of 26 August 2026E TAR.
E TAR Where a beneficiary failed to meet requirements or commitments because of force majeure, no sanctions apply.
E TAR The relief is conditional: it requires a substantiated link to the declared emergency in the applicant's request
E TAR, and a finding that the failure resulted from force majeure.
E TAR
The order tasks the National Paying Agency (Nacionalinė mokėjimo agentūra) with approaching the electricity distributor AB "Energijos skirstymo operatorius" for data on the storm-affected territories and on beneficiaries whose activity sites suffered disrupted electricity supply. That data request gives the Paying Agency outage records alongside applicants' own substantiated circumstances.
The order's legal basis is Article 8(4) of the Žemės ūkio, maisto ūkio ir kaimo plėtros įstatymas, in view of the government resolution declaring the state-level emergency and appointing its operations chief. It applies only to the three named 2026 state-budget schemes.E TAR
In practice, a rural community or heritage beneficiary that missed a commitment — for example an activity milestone at a site left without power by the storm — should file or supplement its request with substantiated emergency-related circumstances and expect the Paying Agency to cross-check the outage data. Beneficiaries unaffected by the emergency, and failures unrelated to force majeure, remain subject to the ordinary sanctions rules.E TAR
Rural-community and heritage beneficiaries disrupted by the August storm should file substantiated emergency-related circumstances with their request to have sanctions waived.