The Lithuanian government has made it easier for highly-qualified people from abroad, including lecturers and researchers, to come to Lithuania.

On Wednesday, the Cabinet backed the Interior Ministry’s proposal to process applications for temporary residence permits from such people remotely and once a positive decision is made, they would just need to arrive and submit their documents’ original biometric data.

Interior Minister Rita Tamasuniene underlined that such changes were proposed in response to a lack of certain highly-qualified specialists in Lithuania and requests from businesses.

It was also decided to lift the requirement to submit the results of a coronavirus test done no later than three days ago, which is especially important for people who want to flee Belarus because of persecution and come to Lithuania or people who want to move their businesses from Belarus as it is now difficult to have such a test done in Belarus.

“In practice, there’s a problem of reliability and falsification of such a test, therefore, the efficacy of the application of this requirement is low. The change is also important in the context of assistance for Belarus, if we equally apply it to arrivals from Belarus, and it’s difficult to have the test done in Belarus due to long queues,” the minister said.

The Cabinet also made changes to introduce more flexibility and facilitation for foreigners arriving in Lithuanian for special humanitarian reasons, and from now not only the foreign minister but also their authorized person will be able to submit a motivated permit to the Interior Ministry.

Permits for people to come to Lithuanian for special humanitarian reasons are issued by the Interior Ministry under the interior minister’s order.

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