I recalled it in connection with an adventure that the President Dalia Grybauskaitė had in Strasbourg, where she went to take her medals for an 'exceptional Lithuanian Presidency of the EU' (as she was praising). Was it really anything to brag about...? Everyone can check it by comparing modest achievements with loud and ambitious announcements. It could be found on the German version of Wikipedia (the Lithuanian one dissembles shamefully these promises), but well, this is a separate topic. Let us go back to the affront that our President has experienced in the French headquarters of the European Parliament.

And so the speech praising own merits in front of representatives of the EU Council was made, chest prepared for the awards, the gala uniform dressed, and suddenly: 'Oh, there is a stain! What a bad luck!' – the rebellious has appeared and pointed to the stain. At first I would get nervous, too. But I would have acknowledged that it was a stain that has to be removed, because sooner or later it would have discredited my presidential uniform and the whole Lithuania, and I would not be outraged by someone who points that out, especially because it is inappropriate to wear stained clothes in foreign salons. And if so... it is not appropriate to set up for the medals wearing such clothes.

'Some people raise this issue in order to discredit Lithuania in the country and beyond,' - this is how the President commented on the speech of Valdemar Tomaševski, Member of European Parliament (MEP), on behalf of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group; during his speech, the MEP has revealed how ruthlessly minorities in Lithuania are being punished for the effort to use their native language. Being punished for something that EU would expect from all member states. Lithuania mocks at these regulations, while the fight with the national minority's language is 'supported by the highest authorities,' as the MEP indicated justly. And all is leaded by the President who tries hard in order to prevent the adoption of the Law on National Minorities (accordant to EU standards) by the Seimas. It is interesting that after the speech of 14th January in Strasbourg, even those environments, which have been discrediting the performance of the President and even Her Excellency herself very frequently and for a long time, started to talk about the discrediting of Lithuanian outside the country.

But as it turns out, what seems to be the norm when made by the representatives of these environments, appears to be insolence when performed by Tomaševski. And a special insolence, to add, as instead of hiding after his speech and thinking that 'maybe it was too courageous', the MEP 'was chasing the President in the Parliament's building,' I found out from the state media. That means he was not afraid to look into her angry eyes. On the contrary, as the MEP revealed to the media, he wanted to point out to Her Excellency that she failed to meet the truth, when she assured that 'none of the European organizations, which had investigated allegations on discrimination against minorities in Lithuania, had confirmed these allegations'. If the President had not scooted away, he probably would have listed up to six organizations that had set such allegations. But nothing is lost yet. In order to refresh her memory, Dalia Grybauskaitė can read about the organizations as well as about their allegations on this website. As the Forum of Parents of Polish School in Šalčininkai district was so kind to prepare the list, in which the links to reports unfavourable for our country are arranged in a chronological order.

However, I cannot resist the impression that our President has an excellent memory. That is why she was not too eager to confront MEP Tomaševski in Strasbourg. She was escaping the truth. She probably has not noticed that Tomaševski is very stubborn when struggling for truth. He was fighting for the truth since his childhood and I know this man for more than 35 years - he is my schoolmate. I remember very well that as a student he was very talented, but rebellious. He could not live with an obligatory version of the history's textbook of those times and since he knew an undistorted version from when he was a tweenie, during lectures he could unleash not a very expedient discussion for pedagogues (does not it remind you of anything?). At the exact time of our current President's studies at the higher party school, 15-year-old Valdemar was sharing his knowledge about Katyń with us – his friends, same teenagers as he was. It was happening during the field work on a collective farm, where students of senior classes were forcibly exiled at those times. Today, my skin is getting numb at the thought that someone could have snitched on us to our counsellors that during those campfire evenings, when we were left alone, one of us was practicing a dangerous anti-sovietism, and the rest were listening to him breathtakingly. Fortunately there was no Judas among us.

In my opinion, a mature politician is the one who is not offended by truth; and the one that knows how to calmly listen to that truth. If the President Grybauskaitė had listened at least once to what the representatives of the minorities in the country say she would not have to blush in Strasbourg. She would not have to defend herself with the clichéd formula 'there is no such country in the EU where the situation of national minorities is better than in Lithuania'. The point is that this situation in independent Lithuania was a heritage, a shame to say, after The Soviet Union and that since 23 years, methodically and enthusiastically, it is getting even worse. There is no single year without unhooking by Lithuanian authorities at least a piece of this 'best of the best situation' from Polish minority. While in other EU countries minorities are getting more rights and freedoms, we are being limited of those once possessed, while increasingly restrictive methods are being used and while being accused of breaking the law. And it is like this now. 'Is the legislation of Lithuania not in force when it comes to the Poles of Lithuania?' – asked ironically a certain pugnacious youngster named Vytautas Sinica, who stated that MEP Tomaševski's speech in Strasbourg in defence of minorities was 'false and derogatory towards the state'.

Sinica is juggling excuses like a parrot; excuses, behind which Lithuanian politicians have been hiding for many years and stubbornly claiming that the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities ratified by Lithuania is like a box of Lego bricks. Each can choose what he wants and build what he wants. And the best is to boot the whole stall into a corner, because it is a troublesome toy. If the Convention was respected at least a bit, there would not be any stain in Strasbourg. And there would not be any fine of 43 400 litas imposed on the Administration Director of the Šalčininkai District for the fact that residents of the region do not want to remove Polish-language boards from their private properties.

MEP would not speak about it as a repression and Sinica would not have to pretend that he is smart saying that 'the penalty for non-compliance to binding legislation is not a repression'. He would not have to lie that 'there is no such right as a human right to public inscriptions in the minority language' nor 'conventions that refer to this law have a character of a recommendation solely'. And it just folds up that 'recommendation' is nothing else but a 'command'; so that I answer with a question to the Sinica's topic question 'Is not EU law in force in Lithuania? Have Lithuania not agreed with the supremacy of the EU law over the national law when joining the EU?'

I agree that putting the above mentioned boards on private properties is an example of a civil rebellion, but also a civil maturity. People are aware of their rights. That way they also send a sign for their parliamentary representatives – deputies of the EAPL - that they should persevere in the pursuit of enactment of the Law on National Minorities, which Lithuania needs even more than Lithuanian Poles. It would be a proof that our country finally began to respect its own international obligations that were neglected so far.

Well, unless the President Grybauskaitė, like Sinica, believes that Lithuania should be proud of the fact that it pursues passionately officials of the Vilnius region for these boards. But in that case there was no need to run away from MEP Tomaševski in Strasbourg; only after hooking his elbow it would have been better to drag him to journalists with the message: 'This is the spokesman and defender of linguistic criminals! Such were punished, are punished and will be punished even more acutely. Because that is our right, which is not going to be adapted to some nonsense Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, although we had ratified it. A fortiori, to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, because you have to be a fool to delude that we would make another mistake and ratify it as well'. After such a sincere manifesto Dalia Grybauskaitė could return from Strasbourg with a shield, not on a shield. The question is if she could still return to Strasbourg.

Lucyna Schiller