Graužinienė: The act on the surnames spelling is “incidental”

The law on the original spelling of names is incidental, says the chairman of the parliament, Loreta Graužinienė, and encourages to approach the case constructively.

“I think this bill is more incidental – constantly emphasises that it will improve relations with Poland. Perhaps, however, this issue has got into the local political games and it is what Waldemar Tomaszewski emphasised the most while standing for the elections. I think we should look at it in more constructive way, as for an ordinary law. Then, there would be less problems”- said Graužinienė in an interview for the Žinių radijas.
According to her, the law cannot be accepted for one social group, they must be approached widely, across the board.

The chairman of the parliament assured, however, that if the project is submitted to final deliberation, she will approve the start of reading the project.

On Thursday, the parliament is to consider a draft law liberalising the spelling of names in official documents.

The project was to be examined on Tuesday, but members of the Mixed Group of Deputies requested for postpone the reading of the draft till Thursday.

The Parliament Committee on the Law and Order proposes allowing to write the names of the Lithuania’s citizens with non-Lithuanian letters in identity documents if the name is stored in the source document in this way.

The Commission of the Lithuanian Language claims that the letters q, w and x would occur only in the names of Lithuanian citizens who have married foreigners or in the names of foreigners who have received the citizenship of Lithuania.
On Monday, the political council of the ruling coalition approved the idea of ​​writing names in official documents in their original form.