Off the wire
• Li, Xu complete gold treble in China national swim meet  • Indonesia unveils massive stimulus packages  • Manneken Pis to wear traditional Chinese suit on Oct. 13  • Top discipline inspector: party members should live up to superior line of values  • Impoverished area in SW China to offer 15 years of free education  • 44 ministerial secretaries sworn in as Sri Lanka's national gov't begins work  • Norway, Russia to sign agreement on notification of nuclear incidents  • Rights body accuses members of Indian military, police officers of abuses in Indian-controlled Kashmir  • High-level delegation from Pakistan arrives in India for talks on border situation  • Two killed as gunmen attack military camp in Burundi: official  
You are here: 　 Home

Lithuania ready to accept more refugees: President

Xinhua, September 9, 2015 Adjust font size:

The European Commission's recommendation for Lithuania to receive more than 1,000 refugees in a two-year period is acceptable, Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite said on Wednesday.

"The number is close to calculations, close to the formula that we have been proposing from the beginning of the debates on refugee quota," Grybauskaite told reporters at the parliament.

"We have received what we were seeking and what we expected," she was quoted as saying by local media.

The European Commission earlier on Wednesday proposed that Lithuania should house in an additional 780 refugees who are currently in Italy, Greece and Hungary.

Lithuania has already agreed to accept 325 refugees, therefore, the total number amounts to 1,105 asylum seekers.

The number is based on "totally objective criteria" with respect to the size of the country's population and its economy, Grybauskaite underlined.

In her words, Lithuania must show both solidarity with Europe and compassion to those fleeing from war. In the meantime, the government must prepare all necessary measures to integrate refugees into society, the head of state added.

"They must be integrated into the country's regions; they need help not just when learning the language, but also when looking for jobs, so that they would like to stay here," Grybauskaite said.

"They must be welcomed here, because they are the ones who need help," she noted. According to the president, the EU has agreed only on numbers, while discussions on how to solve the current migrants crisis itself will continue.

Lithuania's Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius said Lithuania understands the scale of migration problem in EU, therefore, the Baltic country must stand together with other EU member states.

"Our cabinet tomorrow will discuss the European Commission president's proposal to accept in Lithuania more refugees," Butkevicius said in a statement. Endit