The Baltic Times
In cooperation with BNS
April 14, 2008
According to a recent poll by Veidas weekly paper, emigration from Lithuania should not increase. Over half of the 500 polled inhabitants living in larger cities said they would not be willing to emigrate from the country. However, they added that the state doesn’t do anything to encourage the return of citizens who have already moved abroad.
The poll revealed that 62.6 percent of inhabitants don’t want to emigrate from the country.
However, polled city dwellers don’t think that citizens who have already moved abroad would be likely to return to Lithuania. Almost half of the polled (43.6 percent) think that 5-15 percent of Lithuanian emigrants could potentially return, in comparison to 16.3 percent of the polled who thought that 20-45 percent of Lithuanians might move back to their home country.
A reason for the small numbers, regarding the potential return of Lithuanian emigrants, respondents cited the passive re-emigration policy in Lithuania. Some 70 percent of the polled believe that Lithuania doesn’t encourage its citizens, who have emigrated, to return home.
