Gražina Baikštytė, the sole New Union Party member in the Seimas, gives a speech to the crowd of protestors Tuesday afternoon. Photo by Nathan Greenhalgh.

VILNIUS — Roughly 600 people attended a rally outside of the Seimas on Tuesday to protest steep budget cuts the Lithuanian parliament plans for social benefits.

While Seimas members gave the budget a second reading, on an adjacent field orators gave tinnily-amplified speeches on a platform to a crowd of mostly older men and women. The rally was organized by the center-left New Union Party and started around noon.

“I want our politics to change, and I don’t want our payments to end,” Monika Bubnytė, who was in the crowd with her friend and her father, told Baltic Reports. “They need to stop doing everything so quickly. They need to think more and not only about themselves.”

A Lithuanian pensioner sings an angry song with his accordion about Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius and the austerity measures his government has introduced at Tuesday's protest. Photo by Nathan Greenhalgh.

An older Lithuanian man named Andrius, who declined to give his last name, said he was present at the demonstration because he was “curious,” was more critical of New Union. “They don’t give any alternatives. They just play with peoples’ emotions,” he told Baltic Reports.

On Monday President Dalia Grybauskaitė visited the Seimas to push lawmakers to cut even more from the bill. Part of the president’s goal is to reduce payments for pensioners to make sure that the budget deficit is not increased. Grybauskaite is looking to slash some 4.5 billion litai (€1.3 billion) from the budget.

Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said budget cuts were needed at the Seimas earlier that day.

“If the first priority of this year was stabilizing the financial system, and we constantly heard only two words: ‘budget’ and ‘deficit’ and some ‘business support,” Kubulius said, “Next year we will hear the key words ‘unemployment’ and ‘new jobs,’ ‘unemployment gap,’ ‘saving jobs,’ and ‘structural adjustment.’”

During the Seimas meeting today, lawmakers agreed to increase the borrowing ceiling by nearly 900 million litai at 8.96 billion litai. The increase in borrowing is because the government expects an increase in funds from the European Union next year.

The Seimas is expected to vote on the budget bill this Thursday. Another pensioner protest is scheduled for that day.

Tuesday’s protest was no repeat of the January Seimas riot. Police cordoned off the area immediately around the parliament building, while protesters remained peaceful. After listening to speeches in a field near the Seimas for an hour before marching around the government complex and down Gedimino Avenue without blocking traffic.