Lithuanian population lowest in decades: census

(VILNIUS) - Lithuania's population has shrunk to its lowest level in decades, with emigration to richer west European nations continuing to fuel the fall, official data showed on Friday.

The fall to the psychologically-important level of three million people came in April, the Baltic state's statistics office said.

The office said figures showed that 3.04 million people lived in Lithuania when authorities conducted a national census in March 2011.

By September this year, the number had dropped to 2.98 million.

In 2001, when the previous census was conducted, Lithuania had a population of 3.48 million.

In 1989, the year before the republic's watershed declaration of independence from the Soviet Union, the figure had been 3.67 million.

Statistics show the 53,863 people left Lithuania in 2011, half of them choosing Britain as their destination.

Analysts warn that the exodus will have long-term negative consequences for the Baltic state's economy.

"Young people are leaving the country, which means that society will age even faster," Vilnius University economist Romas Lazutka told AFP.

Lazutka said that while government has launched a "Global Lithuania" programme to try to keep ties with emigrants, the very fact of their departure was a "national catastrophe."

Lithuania was one of the eight ex-communist states to join the European Union in the bloc's "big bang" expansion of 2004.

Britain was the major draw because, along with Ireland and Sweden, it was the only existing member of the EU to open its labour market immediately to citizens of new member states.

Lazutka said the emigration trend looked set to continue.

"Lithuanian 'colonies' were established abroad, making it easier to start a new life. Of course, the economic decline in destination countries may have an impact, but Lithuanians may find new places," he explained.

Lithuania has a long tradition of emigration and population decline.

Around half a million left in a search of a better life between the end of the 19th century and World War II.

The war brought even bigger human losses. Nazi Germany and local collaborators killed 95 percent of Lithuania's 220,000-strong Jewish community in 1941-1944.

Lithuania estimates that it also lost 780,000 people at Soviet hands between 1940-1941 and 1944-1952, as people fled to the West, were deported to Siberia, or killed battling communist security forces.