Timely measures needed in Lithuania amid growing migration-related threats - committee

VILNIUS - With the number of migrants in Lithuania increasing, the associated threats are also growing, Rimantas Sinkevicius, the chairman of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense, says.

After hearing representatives of interested parties, CNSD members agreed that timely measures must be taken to prevent these threats.

"Right now, I would say that it (the risk of radicalization - BNS) is increasing as the inflow of migrants is growing, and it is growing from certain territories, with people of different beliefs and varying levels of aggressiveness arriving. And that threat is growing," Sinkevicius told reporters on Wednesday after a closed CNSD meeting.

"And if we do nothing, we will probably have a much bigger problem. I think we need to start addressing it in a timely manner. And the committee members were unanimous on this point," he added.

Sinkevicius points out that the number of arrivals from Central Asian countries has been increasing in recent years.

"Uzbekistan exceeded 10,000 people this month. In reality, Uzbekistan is already number four in terms of community size. The number of arrivals from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan is gradually decreasing. Overall growth is no longer as active as it used to be, it has slowed down," Evelina Gudzinskaite, the director of the Migration Department, said, adding that most workers from Central Asia are employed in the transport sector, followed by industry and construction.

As one of the threats to national security, Sinkevicius mentioned that Muslim immigrants are seeking to take over Lithuanian Tatar prayer houses.

"They are joining traditional Muslim communities where they already constitute the majority and make decisions, and they are already electing boards. They are talking about establishing muftiates, i.e., communities, they are talking about building new mosques, and so on," he said, adding that ways will have to be found to prevent such things while ensuring religious freedom and human rights.

Interior Minister Vladislav Kondratovic says that the quota introduced last year on the number of workers that can be brought in from third countries each year helps to control the process.

"Today, the quota is what keeps us in such a safe zone," he said.

He understands, however, that sometimes a person who has taken up a quota leaves to work in another country, thus using up the quota but leaving a job vacancy.

"Perhaps we will take a different approach, controlling the number of people actually working in Lithuania or in Lithuanian companies," the minister said.

This year's approved quota for the employment of foreigners is 24,830 people. According to the director of the Migration Department, it will already be used up this month.

For his part, Laurynas Kasciunas, the deputy chairman of the CNSD and a member of the opposition conservative Homeland Union - Lithuanian Christian Democrats, pointed out that fewer new permits for temporary residence in Lithuania are currently being issued, with most requests now being for extensions of existing permits.

"Therefore, my amendments, which have already been approved by the Seimas, regarding the state language are certainly appropriate and timely, so that we can put safeguards in place," he said.

The lawmaker is proposing applying the Lithuanian language proficiency requirement to persons who have lived in the country for five years. According to the bill, such persons would have to prove that they are proficient in Lithuanian at the level set by the government in order to extend their temporary residence permit.

According to Kasciunas, it was also noted during the CNSD meeting that the foreigner integration policy is weak and that there is no single institution responsible for it. Moreover, there is a lack of a detailed analysis of the financial benefits and costs of immigration.

"I myself have commissioned a study from the State Data Agency on the benefits and costs of migrants to the state. We usually ask how much tax they pay, but we do not assess how much they may cost for other reasons. It has been agreed that the state must conduct such a study. And on the basis of this, we need to assess another issue: the impact of robotization, automation, and artificial intelligence on the labor market in the future, so that we do not accept immigrants and then not know what to do with them when their jobs may no longer be needed," the politician said.

Kasciunas also plans to propose amendments so that foreigners would be invited to Lithuania on a fixed-term employment contract and would be required to leave when it expired.

Figures from the Migration Department show that almost 215,000 foreigners from third countries currently have residence permits in Lithuania. Most of them - almost 79,000 - are Ukrainians, followed by 50,000 (over 50,000), Russians (almost 14,000), Uzbeks (more than 10,000), Indians (7,700) and Tajiks (6,500).