“We are at a breaking point \u2013 every tenth person is from a foreign country. If no work is done with them, we will have identical problems like Berlin, London, [and] Stockholm. Tis means rising crime, the formation of ‘ghettos\u2019, the emergence of social exclusion, isolation,” Benkunskas said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Surveys conducted by foreigner relocation and integration centre International House Vilnius and others show that a third of foreign nationals in Vilnius do not speak any Lithuanian.<\/p>\n
For this to change, the municipality has presented a EUR 4.3 million action plan, which includes teaching foreigners the Lithuanian language as a prerequisite for integration.<\/p>\n
Moreover, the mayor has addressed the interior minister with the proposal that foreigners would have to be able to speak Lithuanian at least at the A2 level in order to have their temporary residence permits extended.<\/p>\n
Vilnius City Municipality has also asked the Government and the Interior Ministry to tighten regulations for issuing residence permits.<\/p>\n
It is estimated that in Vilnius around 70% of foreign nationals from outside of the EU reside on the grounds of temporary residence permits, which may be extended an unlimited number of times.<\/p>\n
According to the municipality, a Norstat poll shows that 92% of Vilnius residents agree that foreigners living in Lithuania should be able to speak Lithuanian at least at the basic level.<\/p>\n
Member of Vilnius City Municipal Council Aleksandras Nemunaitis criticised the mayor\u2019s initiative. He says foreigners should be able to speak Lithuanian not after 3 years after arriving to Lithuania but since day one.<\/p>\n
Nemunaitis also questioned the decision to allocate EUR 2 million out of EUR 4 million for “psychological assistance to migrants”. He says this is “a slap in the face” for Lithuanian citizens who have to wait for help for months, which is altogether unavailable in rural areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“We are at a breaking point \u2013 every tenth person is from a foreign country. If no work…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[171,170,450],"class_list":{"0":"post-54328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vilnius","8":"tag-lithuania","9":"tag-vilnius","10":"tag-vilnius-en"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116337027672121634","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}