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VILNIUS, Lithuania — A major political shift is underway in the Baltic state of Lithuania, where Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė and her entire cabinet formally resigned on Tuesday, triggered by a breakdown in the country’s ruling coalition over a high-profile antisemitism scandal. The departure clears the way for a new administration that will be Lithuania’s third prime minister in just two years, with the incoming majority already signaling plans to pursue a more pragmatic, stabilized relationship with Beijing after years of strained bilateral ties.

The collapse of Ruginienė’s government traces back to early this month, when the center-left Social Democratic Party — Ruginienė’s party — walked away from its coalition agreement with Nemuno Aušra, a populist political faction that has been mired in controversy. The rupture came over inflammatory rhetoric from one of the party’s former leaders, Remigijus Žemaitaitis, who has been accused of spreading antisemitic hate speech.

The legal case against Žemaitaitis dates back to 2023, when a Lithuanian court handed down a 5,000 euro ($5,800) fine after finding him guilty of inciting hatred against Jewish people. The court ruling also confirmed that Žemaitaitis had grossly downplayed Nazi Germany’s wartime atrocities and minimized the scale of the Holocaust in a series of offensive social media posts and public statements made in May and June of that year. The case is currently pending before an appeals court, where prosecutors are pushing for a harsher sentence, and Žemaitaitis has maintained a plea of not guilty.

Following Tuesday’s resignation, Ruginienė’s decree will officially be submitted to President Gitanas Nausėda. Per Lithuanian political procedure, the president is widely expected to request that the outgoing cabinet remain in place in a caretaker capacity to handle routine state business until a new fully functional government is sworn in.

Addressing her cabinet minutes after the resignation, Ruginienė — a former labor union leader — struck a measured tone, acknowledging the political turbulence while highlighting the administration’s achievements. “Despite all the difficulties, we have much to be proud of, and each of you has made a significant contribution to the welfare of our state and the improving lives of its people,” she said.

Under constitutional rules, President Nausėda has 15 calendar days to put forward a prime ministerial candidate for a vote in parliament. Following a new coalition agreement signed last week by the incoming center-left ruling majority, Social Democratic Party leader Mindaugas Sinkevičius is the presumptive nominee for the top post.

A key focal point of the new coalition’s policy platform is its approach to China. The agreement explicitly signals a willingness to pursue more stable, constructive relations with Beijing, stating that the new government supports the restoration of diplomatic dialogue and the expansion of economic cooperation in areas that align with Lithuania’s national interests. At the same time, the new coalition reaffirms Lithuania’s existing commitments to the European Union, NATO, and its established strategic partnership with Taiwan, maintaining continuity on core security and alliance priorities.

The Social Democrats negotiated their new governing deal with two other center-left political factions, cutting Nemuno Aušra out of the ruling bloc entirely. The new governing alliance holds a solid working majority of 75 seats in the 141-seat Lithuanian parliament, the Seimas. Per the terms of the coalition agreement, at least four cabinet minister positions will change hands, but the new government is expected to keep most major national policy strategies unchanged from the previous administration.

If Sinkevičius’s nomination is approved by the Seimas, he will have up to two weeks to put forward his full proposed cabinet and governing program, which will be coordinated with President Nausėda before going to a final parliamentary vote for approval.

BERLIN — One year into its tenure, the cross-center coalition government led by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has announced an urgent push to enact sweeping reform of Germany’s long-strained public pension system, anchored by a gradual increase of the retirement age tied directly to rising life expectancy. Merz has framed the reform as non-negotiable, stating bluntly that “failure is not an option” for the unpopular administration, which swept into office promising to revitalize Europe’s largest economy.

The coalition, pairing center-right and center-left parties, has faced plummeting public approval over the past 12 months. Voters have widely criticized the government for internal infighting and a perceived lack of tangible progress on the structural challenges that have held Germany’s economic growth back for years. After two consecutive years of contraction, Germany logged only modest growth in 2024, and official projections put this year’s GDP growth at a meager 0.5% — a forecast downgraded due to economic spillover from the ongoing war in Iran.

Long-term headwinds have compounded these short-term growth headwinds: Germany’s 83.5 million population is steadily aging, creating an unsustainable imbalance where a shrinking pool of working contributors must fund benefits for a growing cohort of retirees. Beyond demographic pressure, the country also contends with rising competition from Chinese manufacturing, persistently elevated energy prices stemming from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and ongoing trade uncertainty created by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade threats. Deep structural flaws, including high domestic production costs, stagnant private investment, and ballooning costs for both health and public pension systems, have further suppressed economic momentum.

On Tuesday, a government-appointed independent commission of policy experts and sitting politicians delivered a final report containing 33 targeted recommendations designed to stabilize the pension system for decades to come. The core goals of the proposals are twofold: protect current pension benefit levels from cuts, and avoid the need for drastic long-term increases to the payroll contribution that workers pay into the system, which currently stands at 18.6% of gross wages.

The commission’s most high-profile proposal mirrors a model already used in Sweden, adding regulated market investments to individual pension accounts as a way to generate additional revenue and ease systemic financial pressure. The panel also recommends extending the gradual retirement age increase Germany implemented two decades ago, when the country raised the standard retirement age from 65 to 67. Under the new plan, starting in 2031, the retirement age would be adjusted automatically to match changes in life expectancy. According to German federal statistics office data, national life expectancy currently sits at 78.5 years for men and 83.2 years for women.

Commission co-chair Constanze Janda emphasized that the adjustment would be mild, projecting that the retirement age would rise by roughly six months every decade if current life expectancy growth trends continue. Additional proposed changes include scrapping the mid-2010s policy that allowed workers with 45 years of contribution history to retire at 63 without any reduction in pension benefits, replacing that rule with a new minimum retirement age of 64. The panel also recommended raising the age threshold for workers to access reduced working hours ahead of full retirement from 55 to 58.

Chancellor Merz confirmed Tuesday that his coalition plans to move quickly to implement the entire package of commission proposals, a commitment echoed by Labor Minister Bärbel Bas, co-leader of the center-left Social Democrats, the coalition’s junior partner. Despite the unified government pledge, the reform package faces a steep legislative path: the governing coalition holds only a narrow minority in parliament, and the proposals have already drawn sharp pushback from powerful German labor unions. Reaffirming his administration’s commitment, Merz repeated that inaction is not a viable solution to the country’s long-term demographic and fiscal challenges.

EDINBURGH, Scotland — In a landmark sentencing that has sent shockwaves through Scottish politics, Peter Murrell, the 61-year-old former chief executive of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and estranged husband of ex-Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, has been handed a five-year, three-month prison term for siphoning more than £410,000 ($540,000) from the pro-independence party to bankroll an extravagant personal lifestyle. The sentence was handed down on Tuesday at Edinburgh’s High Court, with credit already applied to account for time Murrell has already served behind bars.

Judge James Young delivered a scathing rebuke of Murrell’s actions, framing the crime as a deliberate, systematic breach of public trust. “All told, this was a calculated crime of dishonesty,” Young told the court. The judge emphasized that the severity of the sentence was intentionally crafted to serve as a warning to senior leaders across all large organizations who may consider misusing their positional authority for personal gain. “One factor in the sentence which I imposed today will be to act as a deterrent to any senior officials in other large organizations who might be tempted to abuse their position in the way that you did,” he added.

In a rare assessment, Judge Young noted that he could find no mitigating circumstances in Murrell’s personal or professional background to justify a reduced sentence. He acknowledged, however, that the relentless public scrutiny surrounding Murrell’s conviction will almost certainly bar him from any meaningful future employment, even after his release. “In truth, it is very difficult to get a clear picture for what drove your actions,” Young said, adding that many of the high-value goods Murrell purchased with stolen funds were never even used.

Court documents and public reporting have laid bare the full scope of Murrell’s misuse of party funds. Beyond the major purchases that first drew attention — a high-end motorhome and a Jaguar electric SUV — Murrell spent stolen money on a sprawling array of personal items ranging from luxury goods to mundane household objects. The list includes premium Bremont watches, multiple high-end coffee makers, a robot lawnmower, Nintendo video games, an egg poacher, two premium toilet seats, and a DVD box set of the Danish political drama *Borgen* — a series Sturgeon once publicly stated she enjoyed. He also used party funds to buy a pendant that Sturgeon was frequently photographed wearing in public.

Murrell’s defense attorney, John Scullion, told the court that his client has been completely cut off from his former political circles since his crimes came to light, and has already endured months of near-total social isolation. Scullion confirmed that Murrell accepts full responsibility for his actions and does not dispute the severity of his offenses.

The conviction and sentencing wrap up a turbulent chapter for the SNP, Scotland’s long-dominant pro-independence party, which has been reeling from the scandal since it first emerged. Sturgeon, who led Scotland’s devolved government for over eight years before stepping down as SNP leader in February 2023, has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Murrell’s embezzlement scheme and has publicly distanced herself from his crimes. The investigation was launched less than two months after Sturgeon’s resignation, when police executed a search warrant at Murrell’s home on April 5, 2023.

Since that initial search, the case has dominated front-page headlines across Scotland and the entire United Kingdom, sparking intense debate over the political future of the SNP and the ethics of political leadership. The unusual breadth of items purchased with stolen funds, ranging from luxury assets to trivial household goods, has captured widespread public attention, keeping the scandal at the top of the national political agenda for nearly a year.