News

On 2 April Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Petras Vaitiekūnas sent a letter to the Speaker of the Seimas Česlovas Juršėnas and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Seimas  Justinas Karosas proposing to resolve as soon as possible the legal collision regarding street names in non-official languages.

It is said in the letter, that internationally reverberated discussions on this matter, that is sore for Lithuania’s national minorities, arise because of uncertainties related to application and interpretation of Lithuanian legal acts and international agreements.

The Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, ratified by the Seimas, is legally binding in Lithuania. Article 11 of the Convention constitutes the provision for the adoption of non-official languages in street names in the territories, which are traditionally compactly settled by national minorities.

Within the framework of the Law on National Minorities, Article 5 also constitutes the provision that in territorial-administrative units, where persons belonging to a national minority live compactly, they shall be granted the right to use the language of their national minority in street names, besides the Lithuanian language. However, Article 17 of the Republic of Lithuania Law on the State Language constitutes the provision that in the Republic of Lithuania public signs shall be in the state language.  

“Taking into consideration the fact that different provisions of Lithuanian legal acts are being interpreted controversially and are not harmonized with the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, ratified by the Seimas, I propose to resolve this issue as soon as possible by eliminating uncertainties related to compatibility of the mentioned provisions and thus prevent the misinterpretations that have negative impact on Lithuania’s image in the international community,” said in the letter of P.Vaitiekūnas