Lithuania's Education Minister calls for mutual Lithuanian-Polish efforts to settle national minority issues

"There is a number of issues in need of discussion and we hope to receive a reply and approval within the coming few weeks to our idea, we expect to meet as early as in May. This would be a sign of mutual resolve to seek answers to sensitive issues in professional circles. On the international scale, we would show that Lithuania and Poland, which have centuries of experience of co-existence, are capable of finding solutions to even difficult problems," the minister told BNS on Monday.

In his words, Lithuania has made progress in settling matters in connection to education of national minorities over the past six months, during which the Lithuanian-Polish task force held no meetings.

Steponavičius said that Lithuania had questions to Poland about the possibilities of the Lithuanian community to prepare for graduation examinations in Poland and preservation of Lithuanian-language schools there.

"First of all, we hear signals from our national minority about certain difficulties during preparations for examinations – this would be one of the topics we would like to talk about. Without doubt, preservation of Lithuanian-language schools remains a problem – similar issues were probably raised by our minorities at the meeting with Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski," Steponavičius said.

He said the idea of resuming work of the Lithuanian-Polish working group has been incubated for a few months.

"We would like the communication to be business-like, not through the media and not on election platforms, and I think this would help us understand each other better," Steponavičius said.

Lithuanian-Polish relations have been tense recently amid disagreements over certain issues regarding ethnic minorities, including spelling of names, bilingual street signs, and education.

Lithuanian people living in Poland have recently said they do not feel safe and called themselves hostages to Lithuanian-Polish relations.

Warsaw supports Polish politicians in Lithuania who demand spelling names in documents documents and street signs in Polish characters, also calling to revoke recent amendments to the Education Law.

Lithuania's government has rejected the criticism, saying that Lithuania's Poles enjoy the best opportunities to learn in their native language outside Poland, and that the new Education Law brings Lithuania closer to European and Polish standards.