Land Reimbursement in a Deadlock

The representatives of the local government from the Vilnius region are worried because of the prolonging process of land reimbursement in the Vilnius region. This led to the meeting of Czesław Olszewski, the deputy mayor in the Vilnius district, Renata Cytacka, the secretary of the Vilnius district municipality, Audronė Ercmonaitė, the deputy manager of the Department of Architecture and Planning in the Vilnius district with Edvardas Raugalas, the Lithuanian deputy minister of agriculture, and Gintautas Vasiliauskas, the deputy director of the National Land Service in Lithuania. However, the representatives from the Vilnius department of the Agricultural Regulation Agency were not present at the meeting.

The process of land reimbursement in the Vilnius district has been looming large in the local authorities’ minds for a long time. During the meeting with Deividas Matulioni, the chancellor of Lithuanian government, it was emphasized that land reimbursement in the Vilnius district is delayed and that the current situation is one of the worst in the country.

The official statistics indicate that the land has been reimbursed to about 80 per cent of the claimers. However, according to the representatives of the Vilnius district municipality, the real numbers are much lower, because only about 40-50 per cent of the requests for land reimbursement received positive opinions. The progressing pace of the land reimbursement was also stressed by Andrius Kubilius, the Lithuanian Prime Minister, who was generous with praising the local authorities from the Vilnius district and the representatives of Lithuanian government.

According to Kubilius, thanks to a constructive dialogue the pace of land reimbursement in the Vilnius district have been speeded up. But the representatives of the Vilnius district municipality say that the situation is much worse and that such meetings are organized only in order to distract people’s attention from the real state of affairs.

http://www.wilnoteka.lt/pl/artykul/sprawa-zwrotu-ziemi-w-martwym-punkcie

Tłumaczenie Sylwia Janus  w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by  Sylwia Janus within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.