"I would say not only recently but traditionally visa applicants, not all but rather many of them, provide fake documents on their employment and so on. Therefore, our specialists, those people who receive documents, are forced from time to time to refer to the Pension Fund asking if they pay to the Pension Fund. That document is hard to forge. If we have doubts on one or another document, we ask to provide additional documents," Stankevič told BNS on Tuesday.
In his words, staff of the Lithuanian representation can also ask for bank documents. But the consul general stressed it didn’t mean "we ask everyone" for additional documents.
"They accept it in a rather painful way but nevertheless we are aware of the responsibility in issuing Schengen visas as they allow to travel in the entire Schengen area and not only Lithuania. Therefore, sometimes we ask for additional information on where the person works, where he is going to, what his contacts are. There might be all sorts of situations. Since, I repeat, there are many cases when documents are forged," Stankevič said.
The diplomat underlined that there was no tightening or changes to the visa issuance procedure for Russian citizens. "It is the way it has been," he said.
His comments followed a request to comment on reports in the Russian media that Lithuanian diplomatic representations had tightened visa rules for Kaliningrad residents.
"Lithuanian diplomats demand from those who want to enter the country documents from the Pension Fund which are not mentioned in the official list of documents necessary for Schengen visa applications ," Russian news website euromag.ru reports.
