Lithuania needs new refugee integration model, president says

Changes are needed to the existing rules that see incoming refugees initially spend up to a year at the Foreigners’ Registration Centre in Rukla, the president said.

“We need to create a new model, a faster one than we had before. There’s no talking about keeping refugees in Rukla for six months or a year,” Grybauskaitė told the national radio LRT.

Incoming people need to get faster the chance to learn the language and work, and curators need to be appointed to take care of newcomers’ families, the Lithuanian leader believes, as integrated refugees will be beneficial for Lithuania which “has always been a multinational country.”

Under the EU plan, Lithuania has agreed to take in 1,105 refugees from countries like Syria, Iraq and Eritrea over the next two years.