After its submission, the Seimas approved a draft amendment to the Law on National Paved Products of the Republic of Lithuania, prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture (MAA). The aim is to transfer the public administration function of the Ministry of Agriculture, which is not typical of the Ministry of Agriculture, to the Agricultural Agency under the Ministry of Agriculture by 31 December 2025.

During the drafting process, all provisions of the Law were reviewed, shortcomings were assessed, and suggestions and comments from other institutions, the Commission of Experts on National Heritage, organisations of creators of national heritage products, traditional craft centres and the Council for the Protection of Ethnic Culture were taken into account. The following amendments have been made:

• taking into account the fact that not all ethnographic regions of Lithuania have traditional craft centres that represent the interests of the creators of national heritage products and promote the traditional crafts of the ethnographic region(s), the procedures for the establishment of new traditional craft centres have been established. The functioning of traditional crafts centres and the quality monitoring mechanisms are clearly regulated;

• in order to ensure a better dissemination of financial support and to avoid the risk of double funding, state grants are abolished, with more funding being allocated to projects for creators of national heritage products. This will increase the dissemination of financial support to a wider range of producers of national heritage products;

• in order to speed up and simplify the certification of national heritage products and to reduce the administrative burden, it is envisaged to move towards a digital certification system and to issue certificates through the Licence Information System (LIS). The data on the certificate will be provided by the Agricultural Agency under the MAFF in the LIS. The certificates will be available to the producers of national heritage products in the LIS, so that they will no longer have to pay a state fee and go to the MAFF to collect the certificate (no more paper forms);

• the draft law sets out clear requirements for certification, criteria for compliance with the tradition, which were previously laid down in sub-legislation;

• to avoid duplication of functions in decision-making, the Council for National Heritage Products is abolished.

The draft amendment to the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on National Heritage Products will be discussed in the Committee on Rural Affairs of the Seimas.