The New immigration wave: is Lithuania ready to open its heart?

ENIn order to help refugees the EU proposed refugees’ acceptance quotas for different countries. However, the migrants are often seen as free-loaders or suspected of being criminals bringing possible threats such as diseases, cultural and religious differences, etc. It is especially important for countries such as Lithuania, which has never faced high levels of immigration before and now will have to accept 1,105 refugees in two years. It is not a big number but considering Lithuania’s population, which is less than 3 million, and the fact that currently there are only 0.7 percent citizens born not in Lithuania, it raises different debates. Moreover, 80 percent of all immigrants during last decades are Lithuanians returning home, and the country does not have a developed immigration policy. Therefore, attitude to immigrants and refugees is very ambiguous in Lithuania. The purpose of this research is to identify the threats felt by a host country, in this case Lithuania, during the current refugee crisis in Europe and to discuss reasons of citizens’ attitudes. For the purpose of analyzing the threats, 35 statements concerning threats were proposed in order to evaluate realistic and symbolic threats for host citizens. These statements were formulated according to the information selected from Lithuanian media. Totally 535 respondents participated in the poll. The study revealed citizens’ negative attitudes to refugees.