News

On 10 May during the conference “New Lithuanian emigration: problems and possible solutions” Lithuanian minister of Foreign Affairs Antanas Valionis urged to pay special attention to the new Lithuanian emigrants’ ties with Lithuania.

The Minister said that it is necessary to take measures helping to save Lithuanian identity of new emigrants, so that their links with historical native land not to be lost.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs prepared a proposal for the Government on how Lithuanian emigration issue should be settled. This “proposal package” includes specific measures to ensure emigrants’ education in Lithuanian, develop sociality, provide information in Lithuanian for new emigrants, integrate emigrants in Lithuania’s life, ensure their participation in elections, provide consular help.

A. Valionis admitted that emigrants are perfect allies of Lithuanian diplomacy. “Initiatives and support of Lithuanian communities have many times helped and I hope will many times help in reaching important state goals. For example an action organized by emigrants a couple of days ago in London is an significant step explaining abstruse history of Lithuania’s occupations to British society,” the Minister said.

The conference is also attended by the Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas, Members of Seimas, representatives of state and non-governmental organisations. Director of the Civic Society Institute Darius Kuolys acknowledged the participants of the conference with the main points of the study “Lithuanian emigration: problems and possible solutions”.

The conference aims at discussing the main problems of latter-day Lithuanian emigration and coordination of Lithuanian public institutions, business community, media and society efforts to settle the topical issues of education, preserving the Lithuanian identity, emigrants’ integration in Lithuania’s life and other.