V. Kristkova stated that Lithuanian national minority situation is being constantly analysed. Besides, reports and recommendations are sent to Lithuanian government on how existing situation could be improved.
'At the moment we are dealing with draft law on national minorities,' said the OSCE representative. She also claimed that after studying the existing legal draft on the rights of national minorities she was unpleasantly surprised because the recognition of such draft would mean a setback of the development of human rights in Lithuania.
In turn, the Chairwomen of the parliamentary EAPL faction Rita Tamašunienė regretted that OSCE recommendations are ignored and the state authorities cover their actions referring to national law, which supposedly prevents the implementation of the OSCE recommendations.
'A few days ago EAPL members of the Seimas submitted a new draft law on the rights of national minorities for consideration. Main points of this draft include educational system (which in general is good but the main aim of the draft is to guarantee that every young citizen would have an unconditional right to study in his mother tongue), writing surnames in original form, bilingual street naming, and stable boundaries of districts. EAPL does not agree with the artificial electoral district changes just before elections. These changes show us that their main goal is to eliminate a political party of national minorities from elections. Besides, electoral threshold for national minorities should be lower,' claimed R. Tamašunienė during the meeting. She also said that these postulates are not imaginary; they are created on the basis of national minorities laws which have been guaranteed in other European Union countries for a long time now.
The Vice chairwoman of the faction Vanda Kravčionok announced that a note with all EAPL postulates aiming to guarantee the rights of national minorities in Lithuania will be handed soon for the director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.
The member of the EAPL faction, representative of Russian Alliance Irina Rozova regretted that problems of national minorities are escalated and that national minorities are given the status of state enemies. 'Although we have been in politics for a long time now and have made a lot of work for all the residents of Lithuania, it looks like everything does not matter as we are from national minority group,' stated I. Rozova.
The OSCE representative thanked the EAPL faction for an in-depth presentation of postulates that would be included in the assessment of the current situation of national minorities in Lithuania prepared by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
