“I believe the task assigned to the VSD is not completely accurate. The obligation for the institution to check thousands of arriving people who cross the border and settle in Lithuania, in my assessment, is not adequate,” Landsbergis told reporters Thursday.
According to the head of Lithuania’s diplomacy, the expectation that the intelligence agency can adequately check every person entering the country is unrealistic.
“Therefore, we have to consider what we can do and how threats can be mitigated, and how pressure can be minimised on the institution to carry out a task that they perhaps cannot carry out fully,” said Landsbergis.
The foreign minister added that, in the assessment of the Foreign Ministry, the flow of foreigners crossing the Lithuanian border “is not necessarily compatible with our national security interests”. Adding that there are various ways how to solve the issue and this would be addressed by responsible ministries.
At the end of 2023, several Conservative MPs registered amendments to the law on restrictive measures proposing to stop accepting applications for temporary residence permits from Belarusian citizens, with some exemptions.
Last spring, parliament imposed restrictive measures due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and suspended acceptance of applications for temporary residence permits from Russian citizens. The law also restricted travel across the external border of the European Union to Lithuania, the acquisition of real estate and the transportation of cash, Ukrainian hryvnias, across the state border.
