Butkevičius accuses the AWPL of populism

AWPL gets ready to the next year’ parliamentary elections and this is the main reason why a protest will take place on Friday in front of the government’s headquarters – the Prime Minister declared.

“The issue is politicized by the AWPL which tries to attract attention to itself in many ways while preparing to the next year’s elections. This is simple populism, which is not even covered by the politicians” – said Algirdas Butkevičius to LRT on Tuesday.

According to the Prime Minister, the national minorities’ education in Lithuania is on a good level. As an example, Butkevičius gave the value of the ‘student’s basket’. “In the schools with Lithuanian language teaching, ‘student’s basket’ equals about 1604 Euro, whereas in the national minorities schools – 2224 Euro, which is by 38% more” – as the government’s leader stressed.

Prime Minister informed that national minorities’ junior high school which has 344 students is given 592 000 Euro per annum and the Lithuanian one – 484 Euro.

The demonstration will be held on next Friday at 15:30 before the government’s headquarters. The Parents’ Forum of Polish Schools is the promoter of the protest. Danuta Narbut, the former vice-director of the administration of Vilnius from the AWPL party, applied for the issue of the permit.

The protest will focus on social issues beside the postulates of the national minorities. According to organizers, a few hundred schools were shut down, half of teachers lost their job and the teacher’s position is deprived of its status.

AWPL supports the protest; thus, yesterday at the Seimas, the press conference was organized.

Waldemar Tomaszewski said at the conference that despite earlier promises, the government and the current ruling coalition have done nothing concerning the issues of national minorities. The National Minorities’ Act has not been accepted yet. “The Department of national minorities has been formed. However, we reckon it is not able to solve the current problems. Of course, it is good that the government has fulfilled one promise from its program” – Tomaszewski stressed.

Tomaszewski also supported the social requests.