Lithuanian-Polish ties miserably worse – Adamkus

“The relationship has been chilled due to reasons I find hard to understand, also on the state level, we no longer define each other as strategic partners we used to be,” Adamkus told the Veidas weekly magazine. “There is no longer the attitude that Lithuania and Poland are equal partners in Eastern Europe, they are involved in international politics by supporting each other and state leaders closely cooperate when handling issues that are of concern to the entire Eastern European region.”

In Adamkus’ words, the countries should come up with a compromise “in line with principles of free nation” in the disputes surrounding the spelling of Polish names and locations. He suggested that Polish first and last names could be spelled in the original version on the second page.

He said he had recently discussed the current Lithuanian-Polish relations with Poland’s former president Alexander Kwasniewski. The two presidents did not come up with a solution for improvement of the mutual relations between the two states, said Adamkus, expressing hope that Lithuania would find ways of becoming closer to Poland again.

The relations between Lithuania and Poland had chilled in the past year. After the main ruling party was changed in Poland more than a year ago, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Lithuanian and Polish parliaments has not yet met, and Lithuania’s President Dalia Grybauskaitė only met her new Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, for a bilateral meeting in late August in Croatia.