“We are exploring solutions together with the ministry. The situation indeed is not pleasant when such decrees have to be signed. It is regrettable that the referendum did not pass (&) and that the awaited and hoped change did not happen,” Bilotaitė told the news agency ELTA.
The minister said that Lithuania does not wish to keep losing its citizens, whereas the Ministry of the Interior is not deliberately looking for people who have become citizens of other countries just to revoke their Lithuanian passports. She added, however, that current law has to be followed as holding dual citizenship is permitted only in exceptional cases.
Furthermore, Bilotaitė added that the Ministry of Interior would examine additional possibilities for people to retain citizenship but could not say what the decision may look like.
Earlier on Thursday, Freedom Party’s leader Aušrinė Armonaitė, minister of the economy and innovation, addressed the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Migration Department asking them to suspend revoking passports from Lithuanians who have obtained citizenship of other countries.
The politician said she was informed that many people lose citizenship not only when they relinquish it themselves but that authorities are proactively checking data of Lithuanians residing abroad and annuling citizenships for some 1,000 Lithuanians each year.
On 12 May, simultaneously with the first round of the 2024 presidential election, Lithuanians voted in the dual citizenship referendum. Turnout was 59.02% and 73.94% of voters were in favour of dual citizenship. However, the referendum did not pass as fewer than half of all Lithuanians voted in favour of the motion.