They stood up against the desire to limit the trips of Belarusians living in Lithuania to their homeland: the arguments are different

“I don’t see the difference, a person leaves once, twice or three times. It seems to me that this is more of a PR stunt than any real impactful solution. Our opinion remains as it was – we do not support tightening and we see Belarusian society and its people somewhat differently from Russian society,” Labor leader Andrius Mazuronis told reporters in the Seimas on Tuesday.

“In our decisions, we should distinguish between the regime and the measures applied to it – whether it be sanctions or some other restrictions on sectors or something like that. and society. And these proposed measures, in my opinion, are more aimed at society and do not solve security challenges,” he added.

However, as Dovilė Šakalienė, a member of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP), points out, limiting the number of trips to Belarus would reduce the burden on Lithuanian services for checking foreigners.

“That time in three months or once a year is so quantitative – (…) it is a check number – how much additional load we put on our services. This was clearly stated by the services – they would like that restriction to be once a year, and not once every three months,” said D. Šakalienė.

However, the representative of the opposition pointed out, despite the fact that she sees the need to regulate the amount of trips to Belarus, it is important to take into account which group of persons would be affected the most.

“We have an average of 10-11 border crossings from those persons who have Belarusian citizenship and a residence permit in Lithuania. Of course, it would be logical to reduce it. But, again, as I said, that balance has to do with some of our economic dependencies. Because if we have a situation where practically half of the drivers, over 38 thousand, in Lithuania are citizens of Belarus, then, unfortunately, we need to make certain exceptions during this period,” said the parliamentarian.

ELTA reminds that on Tuesday the Seimas intends to consider amendments to the law, which propose to extend the national sanctions applied to citizens of Russia and Belarus for one more year and to tighten the screening of Belarusians entering the country. A provision limiting the number of trips to the homeland by Russians and Belarusians will also be considered in this bill.

Also, the Seimas intends to consider a proposal to stop the acceptance of visa applications by citizens of Russia and Belarus at Lithuanian visa services abroad, except in cases where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs mediates this.

The draft law also aims to clarify the application of national sanctions to legal entities – it is proposed to provide for restrictions on Russian businessmen, regardless of whether they have a temporary or permanent residence permit in Lithuania.

It is also intended to limit the right of legal entities to purchase real estate after assessing whether a Russian citizen is a beneficiary of a specific legal entity in accordance with the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing.

After the Seimas adopted the amendments to the law, the application of restrictive measures would be extended from May 3 of this year. until 2025 May 2