Lietuva in brief - 2010-12-23

rime Minister Andrius Kubilius calls the proposals to restore the reduced pensions as of April 1 next year “black humor,” reports ELTA. “It is black humor by the Social Democrats. Strange debates at the Seimas, when economic experts and the president said that the initiative of the Social Democrats to restore the reduced pensions as of Jan. 1 is an economic crime, have just finished and now we have another proposal - to restore pensions as of April 1,” Kubilius said in an interview to Ziniu Radijas. “Algirdas Butkevicius voted for the restoration of pensions as of January 1, and this means that an additional 600 million litas (173.9 million euros) have to be found in the budget, and at the same time he says that such funds would never be found… The complete chaos of thought that we have been witnessing over the past recent days is a surprise to me and I do not know how to react to it,” Kubilius says.

The loss of Lithuanian Jews is a great tragedy for the nation of Lithuania and other European nations, Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said when visiting the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem, reports ELTA. “Holocaust pain is also the pain of Lithuania. (...). We will never forget the tragedy of the Jewish people and its victims. We will never forget the crimes. We will not forget the heroes who saved the innocent people,” Kubilius wrote in a guestbook. After visiting the museum, Kubilius laid a wreath at the Hall of Remembrance, where floors are engraved with the names of the burial sites and places of mass killings of the Jewish people. Regrettably, it also includes a Lithuanian place name - Ponery (Paneriai). On a visit to Israel, the Lithuanian prime minister said to the museum’s leadership that in the autumn of 2011, Lithuania would host an international conference on xenophobia and anti-Semitism, “Teaching the Public about Tolerance: Lessons of Historical Memory,” to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust and present the concept of the upcoming project “Development of Paneriai Memorial.”