The new working party on the Lithuanian Law on Ethnic Minorities was launched three months ago, have not even had a meeting yet

Only now the working party on revisions to the Lithuanian Law on Ethnic Minorities have decided to have a meeting for the first time. 

“We’ll be trying to meet soon but we don’t have a common idea for now. We can’t write a legislative bill that would be illegal and unconstitutional. We’ll try to reach a compromise,” Remigijus Motuzas, a vice-chancellor of the Lithuanian government and a chairman of the working party, told BNS.

A working party chaired by Edward Trusewicz proposed a draft of the Law on Ethnic Minorities, which stipulated introduction of bilingual signs, among others; however, it was decided in February that the bill should revised by another working party, chaired by Motuzas.

According to Motuzas, revisions to the bill were put back by the Lithuanian presidential election and the European Parliament election.

“We haven’t done anything because, to be honest, all political parties decided that we wouldn’t do anything before the elections,” the vice-chancellor explained.

Motuzas said that he didn’t know how to reach a compromise since “the vice-minister of culture stated two months ago that the signs should be introduced, and that would be illegal.”

At the beginning of this month, the leader of Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania, Waldemar Tomaszewski, claimed that the Council of coalition government decided that they would revive the old Law on Ethnic Minorities by the end of the spring session.

Source: http://pl.delfi.lt/aktualia/litwa/nowa-grupa-robocza-ds-ustawy-o-mniejszosciach-narodowych-wybrana-3-miesiace-temu-jeszcze-sie-nawet-nie-spotkala.d?id=65047833

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