On August 12, OSCE Permanent Council discussed the situation in Belarus one year after the fraudulent Presidential elections  of August 8, 2020, and in the context of unprecedented repressions that followed.

On 30 July, Chancellor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Inga Černiuk and Rector of ISM University of Management and Economics Dalius Misiūnas signed a cooperation agreement between the MFA and ISM.

On 29 July, at the Permanent Council of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Lithuania rejected Belarus‘s claims that it was mistreating migrants crossing their mutual border. Lithuania underlined that the refugee flows it faces are irregular and artificially created by the Belarusian regime in Minsk in order to put political pressure on the Government of Lithuania and the EU.

On 22 July, the Chancellor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Inga Černiuk and the Rector of Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Prof. Dr. Eugenijus Valatka signed a cooperation agreement between the Foreign Ministry and KTU.

On 16 July, Lithuania informed the Permanent Council of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) of a sharp increase in the number of third country nationals illegally crossing the state border from Belarus into Lithuania over the past two months. Belarusian border guard service has ceased cooperating and sharing information with their Lithuanian counterparts. Lithuania representative said that the Government believes that, by pursuing such policies, Belarus engages in using illegal migration as a political weapon, abusing international refugee protections. These illegal crossings are artificially stimulated and represent a clear act of political vengeance on the part of the Belarusian regime for Lithuania’s vocal stance towards grave violations of human rights in Belarus. 

The MFA informs about adoption by the Seimas of the amendments to the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and the accompanying legislation (Draft No XIVP-719(2)), thereby providing for faster processing of asylum applications and restricting some of the rights of asylum seekers in cases where the state is not in a position to guarantee their rights due to a state of war or state of emergency, as well as emergency or an emergency event due to the mass influx of foreigners. 

On 12 July, the Permanent Representative of Lithuania Ambassador Andrius Krivas sent letters to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Mr. Filippo Grandi and the Director General of the International Organization for Migration Mr. António Vitorino in which he provided detailed information on the increased flow of third-country irregular migrants from Belarus to Lithuania and asked respective organizations to react in accordance with their mandates.

On 12 July, the Chancellor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Inga Černiuk and the Rector of Mykolas Romeris University (MRU) Prof. Dr. Inga Žalėnienė signed a cooperation agreement between the Foreign Ministry and the MRU.

Panel 2: Gender-equal socioeconomic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic
Intervention by the Nordic and Baltic States
delivered by H.E. Amb. Andrius Krivas, Permanent Representative of Lithuania in Geneva
6 July 2021