Rzeczpospolita, 9 November 2009

You say Waldemar, I say Valdemar

Published on 9 November 2009 at 15:28
Rzeczpospolita, 9 November 2009

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The Polish community of Lithuania has lost its battle to have names spelled in Polish fashion on passports, following a ruling by the Lithuanian Constitutional Court that has decided that names using Polish spelling may not appear on the front of official ID. “This is a sign that Lithuanians still lack the will to resolve the matter,” complains MEP Waldemar Tomaszewski, (AKA Valdemar Tomaševski in Lithuanian) the head of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania who has promised to take the issue to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Despite promises made by consecutive Lithuanian governments and the country’s president, the question, ongoing since 1994, still continues to cloud relations between Warsaw and Vilnius. As Rzeczpospolita duly notes, Lithuanians living in Poland are free to write their names using Lithuanian characters.

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