Key Findings
Best practice (100% score)
Rights associated with labour market access and family reunion
Favourable
Definitions and concepts of anti-discrimination law
Unfavourable
Security of nationality
Political participation policies
Critically unfavourable (0% score)
Security of employment
Dual nationality
Consultative bodies and implementation policies for political participation
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Overview
Recent trends place Lithuania as a significant country of emigration, with rates that are the highest in the EU-25. In 2005, the number of Lithuanian citizens returning from abroad was double the number of incoming thirdcountry nationals (largely Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and stateless persons). Recent media debates on liberalising employment procedures for non-EU nationals have intensified amid fears that growing labour market shortages could overheat the labour market. Yet the government has placed its migration focus more on managing emigration than on reforming these strict regulations.
Family reunion is the strongest policy area of the six measured by MIPEX. Lithuania ranks second best in the EU-10, after SI. However, it scores second worst of the 28 MIPEX countries on long-term residence, after IE, and on political participation policies, after LV. Policies on access to nationality score slightly unfavourably, tied with DE and higher than EE and LV. Anti-discrimination laws and access to the labour market score around halfway to best practice. Of the MIPEX 28, Lithuania leaves third-country nationals (hereafter ‘migrants') with some of the greatest insecurity under the law as workers, family members, long-term residents, and naturalising citizens.
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Pathways to citizenship for Soviet-era residents
After WW2, Russians migrated within the USSR to Lithuania, but in much smaller numbers than to LV or EE. Ethnic Russians composed only 9.4% of the population in 1989. The 3 November 1989 citizenship law made all permanent residents, regardless of their ethnicity, language, or religion, eligible for Lithuanian nationality. This and other inclusive citizenship mechanisms encouraged nearly 90% of all permanent residents to become Lithuanian citizens. As of 2006, only 0.9% of the population was non-EU nationals. For more, see Gelazis, Nida M. "The European Union and the Statelessness Problem in the Baltic States", European Journal of Migration and Law (Nijhoff, Vol. 6, No. 3, Nijmegen, NL, 2004) 225-242.
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Integration Policy Timeline
01/09/2005
Bill proposed to remove obligation to write all names and surnames in Lithuanian characters
01/09/2006
National Anti-discrimination Programme 2006-2008 represented first action explicitly addressing discrimination
13/11/2006
Constitutional Court found dual nationality for ethnic Lithuanians unconstitutional
28/11/2006
Amendments to Law on Legal Status of Aliens transposed numerous EC Directives, including on family reunion
01/02/2007
Long-term residents allowed to vote and stand for municipal councils; several parties put forward candidates, but none were elected.
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Migrant Profile
