The paper seeks to assess the impact of the EU membership on the develompent of LGBT rights in Lithuania. Analysis of neghbouring and culturally similar Polish case (O‘Dwyer 2012) shows that access to the EU not only established certain anti-discriminatory norms, but also created preconditions for raising issue of LGBT rights at political agenda. This eventually both strengthened LGBT movements and determined LGBT-friendly changes in national political discourse. Meanwhile, in Lithuania the political landscape re-structured in different way. While LGBT rights movements have also become to some extent more organised, the political opponents have managed to consolidate their ranks, and at present they completely prevail in the Parliament. Historical heritage, weak and rather non-transparent local LGBT leadership and peculiarities of national party system may explain such reframing of political field. This case study is based on process-tracing and comparative perspective by including other Baltic countries into analysis as well.
