Before the elections, in July 2012, there was a meeting organised in the House of Polish Culture in Vilnius. EAPL leaders – chairman, Member of the European Parliament Valdemar Tomaševski and vice-chairwoman, Mayor of the Vilnius District Marija Rekst and the representatives of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) – Raul Murasen and Robert Krimmer - have met.

During the meeting, EAPL chairman stressed that the changes of electoral constituencies in the Vilnius Region and the decision of the Central Electoral Commission regarding separating another two electoral districts from the Vilnius District (61% of Poles) and connecting them to the Molėtai District (6% of Poles) means the violation of the rights of Polish national minority in Lithuania. V. Tomaševski also underlined the fact of existence of electoral threshold of 5 percent (introduced in 1996) applicable to national minorities and the impossibility of campaigning in the native language as there are high fines provided for the use of other than the national language.

On 3^rd January 2013 the election watchers from OSCE have issued a report on the parliamentarian elections (2012) in Lithuania. They have presented the list of suggestions that could improve the voting process in Lithuania and paid a lot of attention to national minorities and restraint of their rights. The watchers also stated that in order to ensure better representation of national minorities’ parties in the legislative process, the electoral threshold should be reduced for the parties representing national minorities.

The watchers also noted that the decisions regarding the change of the boundaries of electoral constituencies, which may influence national minorities, have to be made after the consultation with the representatives of national minorities.

Moreover, the watchers stated that the information regarding the voting procedure has to be presented in the language of the national minorities which inhabit the particular area. This would make voting procedure much easier.

The above mentioned report is a notable success of EAPL which has been soliciting for compliant with European standards voting rights for national minorities in Lithuania for many years.

Press office of EAPL