There are things in both countries that undermine bilateral relations, Cimoszewicz says, but does not consider them significant.
"It is hard to understand position that your prime minister recentry said about bilingual boards," the Polish senator told BNS in Vilnius.
In a recent interview with BNS, Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius has said that bilingual location and street signs should not be allowed in Lithuania.
"In my opinion, we should understand that we are all Lithuanian citizens. And there should be equal conditions for all Lithuanian citizens. It means that there should be no signs that are spelled in two languages, if we respect our state, our Constitution and laws of our state," the prime minister said in an interview with BNS.
Cimoszewicz believes that the two countries should hold more discussion in order to alleviate tension in bilateral relations.
"As we all now, there are some problems. There are some bilateral problems that I would describe as unfortunate. Because they are not very important, but a little bit irritating to both sides. I feel that there is kind of tension, a little bit hidden, but still existing, which is not natural in case of neighbors, so close nations with a long common history," he said.
"I believe that we need much more to talk. At all levels. This is a little bit paradoxical that being a neighbor, having that long common history, being together in those international institutions like the European Union and so on, our nations today know very little about one another. It is so close, it is so near, but we live like in different worlds a little bit. So all those problems concerning some rights of the Polish minority living here, concerning education, concerning the way the names are officially pronounced, some complains of Lithuanians living in Poland - that should not be continued, that should not be the problem. That should not exist, in fact. I believe erase that by solving all of that of course, not by forgetting, but by solving the problems," the Polish Senate's committee chairman said.
He also says that the incumbent Lithuanian government's position on ethnic minority problems was very promising before it came to power but now Poland misses concrete work.
"So I don't want to say there are absolutely no problems on the Polish side, probably there are and we should listen very openly and we should be ready to do everything possible but, as I said, there is a little difference, here we sometimes see the official position of the government, of the authorities of the government, which is hard to be accepted on the ground of the legal regulations between us and European regulations," Cimoszewicz said.
Lithuanian-Polish relations have been tense recently due to different positions on the situation of ethnic minorities.
