Kasčiūnas proposes tighter rules for foreign students in Lithuania

Conservative lawmakers have proposed halving the weekly work limit for foreign bachelor’s students in Lithuania to 20 hours and tightening rules on student admissions, LRT reported Friday. The proposals are intended to curb potential abuse of migration rules through study.

The lawmakers have registered amendments to the Law on the Legal Status of Foreigners. They would apply the 20-hour limit to both employment contracts and self-employment. The current limit is 40 hours a week.

Conservative leader Laurynas Kasčiūnas said self-employment was one way foreign students were using the labour market. He also proposed stricter conditions for universities admitting students from outside the European Union.

The proposals would remove the right of foreign master’s students to bring family members to Lithuania, while retaining that option for students in medical residency and doctoral programmes.

Kasčiūnas said the government should set clear criteria for which higher education institutions can admit foreign students. He said the Education, Science and Sport Ministry should review study outcomes, including whether students remain enrolled indefinitely and whether they receive grades for completed work. The government could then approve a list of institutions considered suitable to attract students to professions where workers are needed, he said.

Kasčiūnas said Lithuania had 10,645 foreign students in September. The largest groups were from Pakistan, with 1,576 students, India with 1,481, Bangladesh with 1,112, Morocco with 916 and Belarus with 832.

Kasčiūnas also urged against overreacting to Lithuania’s exclusion from a US-initiated meeting in Poland involving some NATO partners. He described it as a separate Bergen format, initiated by the United States in early summer, and said no official criteria for invitations had been announced.

He said US Deputy Secretary of War Elbridge Colby had identified defence spending, military capabilities and the defence industry as factors for inclusion. Kasčiūnas said Lithuania met the spending criterion but could struggle to meet the other two. He added that the invitations appeared logical if the United States was seeking to shift more responsibility for NATO planning to European allies.

Politico reported Thursday that several European countries that spend heavily on defence were not invited to the Pentagon-organised meeting. Those not invited included Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the United Kingdom and France.