Tamašunienė registered a draft at the secretariat of Seimas meetings, suggesting to extend the validity of the law adopted by the Supreme Council – Reconstituent Seimas in 1991.
The law was in effect in Lithuania between 1991 and 2010, stipulating that municipalities with dominant non-Lithuanian-speaking populations should have information signs in two languages: Lithuanian and the language of the national minority.
Tamašunienė said the provision makes sense, as non-Lithuanian speakers make up about 16 percent of the country's population.
"With the large number of residents of national minorities, it is vital to have a law that would protect their rights and regulate the situation of national minorities in Lithuania," she said in an explanatory note.
In the last general census of 2011, residents of 154 ethnicities were reported in Lithuania, they make about 16 percent of the population. The largest national minorities include Poles (about 6.6 percent of the population), Russians (5.8 percent) and Belarusians (1.2 percent).
