During the international ILGA-Europe LGBT human rights conference on the 19th of October, 2024, in Bucharest, it was announced that in 2025 the conference will be held in Vilnius. The historic ILGA-Europe flag was symbolically passed on to delegates from Lithuanian Gay League and Tolerant Youth Association on the conference’s stage.

 Vilnius won the right to host the ILGA-Europe conference in 2025 over numerous other European cities. The capital of Lithuania was chosen because of its active LGBT communities, relevant human rights issues, complicated geopolitical situation, and excellent preparation for organizing mass gatherings of such kind.

 “I am happy that the ILGA-Europe conference is coming back to Vilnius. We will have an opportunity to show the whole of Europe how lively our LGBT human rights movement is and how open and LGBT friendly our city is. It is a great honour and opportunity for us to organize the biggest LGBT human rights conference in Europe”, says the Executive Director of LGL Vladimir Simonko.

The ILGA-Europe conference will attract more than 600 delegates to Vilnius from Europe and Central Asia.

The largest LGBT human rights conference will be held in Vilnius for the second time. The first time the ILGA-Europe conference took place in Vilnius was in 2007, and it was met with protests. In 1994, the first “ILGA” conference in Northern Europe was held in Palanga.