How Dalia Grybauskaitė’s attitude to Poles has changed over the years

Let’s take a look at Dalia Grybauskaitė’s statements on issues concerning Poland over the last few years.

The 29th of August 2009 – ‘Lithuanian grammar includes all that is necessary to write Polish surnames with Polish diacritics. I do not see any technical problems. Following the decision taken by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania, the only remaining issue will be good political intention.’

‘The strategic partnership of Lithuania and Poland is very important for me, so I would like to develop such a partnership not only with Poland, but with as many countries as possible. I want a true partnership, based on precise issues, not nice words.’

The 4th of March 2011 – ‘The relations on the highest level are really good. There are some politicians who use extremely aggressive rhetoric in order to justify their domestic policy.’

The 20th of May 2012 – ‘We faced a very complicated situation in public. For unknown reasons, some Polish politicians decided that it is better for their country to remain on friendly terms with Russia and to ignore all minor countries, pushing them into the role of scapegoats. It seems that Lithuania is supposed to play such a role.’

The 4th of June 2012 – ‘Lithuania should be thoughtful and adjust to this geopolitical situation, which influences our country and the whole world, while trying to defend its interests. Within the last three years, the geopolitical situation surrounding Lithuania has been changing, so our external policy was also changing, trying to adjust to the contemporary circumstances. That is why I declare that it is better to take a pause in some relations that trying to fix those which cannot be fixed at the moment.’

The 28th of June 2012 – ‘Our relations, especially in the field of co-operation, which refers to economy, commerce and managing common projects, are very good, and I would even say that they are more fruitful than before, when we had good political relations.’

The 25th of June 2013 – ‘Our Constitution does not support this proposition. I cannot act against the Constitution.’

The 15th of April 2014 – ‘I can confirm my attitude once more – the Lithuanian language cannot be the object of political disputes.’

The 24th of April 2014 – ‘The question assumes that surnames would also be written with other alphabets than the Latin one, for example Cyrillic script and hieroglyphics.’ – President Grybauskaitė’s answer to a question posed by the portal manobalsas.lt: if she would agree to the original spelling of a surname in a passport.