“Name spelling is an issue of the protection of human rights” – Valdemar Tomasevski
The controversial subject of the Polish versus Lithuanian name spelling is at the forefront once again. Today, Valdemar Tomasevski, the leader of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania, declared that his political group would not seek to raise this sensitive issue during potential coalition talks, lrytas.lt portal reported referring to BNS.
Speaking to BNS, the representative of the Polish minority in the country stated that, “name spelling is a very important issue as a surname, a name is an individual’s property, just like private property. But that’s not a political issue, it’s an issue of the protection of human rights,” Tomasevski emphasised.
Nonetheless, the political leader will be prudent about this subject during coalition talks, “if that’s not a political issue, we’ll not raise it at the political level,” he said. His party have requested Lithuanian authorities to legalise the Polish name spelling of non-Lithuanian names by using non-Lithuanian letters such as w. This issue has inflamed Polish-Lithuanian relations for some time.
The outgoing Kubilius administration submitted legislation on name spelling to the parliament on 2011 but a majority of parliamentarians rejected such legislative initiative.
When prompted upon the possibility of joining a government coalition and if whether his party has been invited to do so, Tomasevski expressed that “I think it’s too early to speak about that as we need to wait for the election results. Of course, consultations take place, we regularly meet, we meet on TV. We need to wait. I believe all options are possible,” the Polish leader concluded.
Social Democratic leader, Algirdas Butkevicius, seems ready to invite the EAPL to his coalition. Speaking today on Znad Wilii radio, Butkevicius commented that “we plan to invited.
