Controversy as ID cards replace passports

VILNIUS - On Nov. 6, Parliament passed a bill on the replacement of passports as the primary means of identification in Lithuania with ID cards, which will be introduced gradually from 2003.

Parliament will introduce a two-tier system of internal domestic ID cards and passports valid for travel abroad. The ID card will be mandatory for all Lithuanian citizens above the age of 16, while passports will be issued only on request. A bill on the passport's new design was also enacted on Nov. 8.

The bill also provides for the ID cards to serve as international travel documents if appropriate agreements are reached with other countries.

Lithuania plans to join the European Union in 2004, and Lithuanians would travel with their ID cards inside the EU. Passports would remain the primary documents for travel abroad to non-EU countries that do not have visa-free arrangements with Lithuania.

According to Juozas Bernatonis, interior minister of the center-left government, the ID cards would be harder to counterfeit than current passports. Many EU states have their own domestic ID card systems.

Sixty-one MPs voted in favor of the bill on ID cards, 23 voted against and 13 abstained.

Corrupt tender?

The decision on ID cards was passed after fierce debates, in which accusations of corruption and rhetoric about insulted patriotic feelings were slung across the chamber.

Before the Nov. 6 decision on ID cards, Stanislovas Buskevicius, the Young Lithuanians Party leader and its only MP, alleged he had received confidential information from the Interior Ministry that ID cards had already been printed.

"I called the Interior Ministry and asked why the text of the cards includes international words instead of Lithuanian words. I was told the ID cards had already been printed," he said.

Conservative Party leader Vytautas Landsbergis reacted at the time by saying that any ID cards that had already been printed before a decision by Parliament would be obvious corruption. The Interior Ministry denied Buskevicius' information.

On Nov. 6, Parliament made minor stylistic changes to the language on the ID cards, in essence to "Lithuanianize" it, including the title. The middle word in "asmens identifikavimo kortele" (personal identification card) was deemed not Lithuanian enough and changed to "tapatybes," which essentially means the same thing.

Earlier, in an Oct. 31 sitting, the Conservatives threw more accusations over the fact that the initial winner of a tender to supply the machinery and software to produce the cards was announced without waiting for Parliament's decision on whether they would be introduced.

"When the government can explain why a tender was announced without a bill being passed, and what will happen to that tender if the law isn't enacted, then we can consider what to do next," Conservative MP Andrius Kubilius said.

Reacting to these accusations, Bernatonis asked the Lithuanian Special Investigations Service to launch an investigation into the tender process. He surprised MPs by saying that decisions about the tender were made by Kubilius, then Conservative prime minister, a year ago.

In April 2000, Liberal Rolandas Paksas, who replaced Kubilius as prime minister after last year's general election, held the Interior Ministry responsible for carrying out the tender.

"It's a pity that MP Andrius Kubilius can't remember what he was doing as PM Andrius Kubilius," Bernatonis said.

As it stands now, the government has not yet decided which firm will be the future supplier. The tender was not successful, and negotiations are continuing with two competing Western European companies.

Ethnic strife

Some opposition MPs expres-sed their anger that ethnicity will not be mentioned on the ID cards. "Now they don't allow me to write my ethnicity on the ID card," Buskevicius complained. "Soon they'll forbid me to speak Lithuanian."

Christian Democrat MP Kazys Bobelis said, "It is against democratic principles if a citizen has no right to mention his ethnicity in the ID card."

Fellow party comrade Pertas Grazulis shouted, "I should have a right to my ethnicity. I'll appeal to the European Court of Human Rights asking that this law be made invalid."

Bernatonis said any proponents of designating ethnicity in the ID cards were Euroskeptics, reminding them that this is not done in the EU.

Liberal MPs expressed the same position. "I'm proud that I'm Lithuanian too, but I don't need a certificate to prove it," Liberal MP Algirdas Gricius said.

In Lithuanian passports, ethnicity can be mentioned if desired by the passport holder. Such a rule was accepted due to demands by MPs of Polish origin soon after the re-establishment of Lithuanian independence. Polish-Lithuanian MPs wanted to protect their ethnic identity in this way.

However, on Nov. 8, Parliament passed a bill on a new design for passports. There is no space for ethnicity in the new passport, which, after the ID cards are introduced, will be used only for foreign trips to countries requiring visas.

This time ethnic Poles did not protest. One of them, Social Democrat MP Artur Ploksto, supported the change saying, "Nobody abroad understands the word 'Lenkas' (Pole in Lithuanian) in my passport anyway."

The other Baltic states will also be introducing ID cards, Estonia in 2002 and Latvia in 2003.