Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita Friday wrote scathing comments about Lithuanian-Polish relations saying they had hit rock-bottom after the most recent voting down of the spelling law that prevents ethnic Poles from spelling their names as their ancestors did.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski met with Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite to talk about the issue among others just two days before his doomed flight to Smolensk on Saturday. He was optimistic that the name-spelling issue, which has been raging for years, could be solved. He said that the law was hurting relations between the countries.

The Lithuanian Seimas is hell-bent on not allowing ethnic Poles to spell their name using characters in the Latin alphabet if they do not appear in the Lithuanian alphabet. The most recent bill to be voted down in the Seimas was presented by Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, but was voted down with many politicians saying the law would threaten the existence of the Lithuanian language.

Polish politicians would help Lithuania wake up from their “dream of nationalism,” Lietuvos Rytas quoted the Polish paper as saying.

“Lithuanian-Polish relations have reached the bottom. When Polish President Lech Kaczynski flew to Vilnius to meet with Dalia Grybauskaite, almost all of the Lithuanian Seimas supported keeping the onerous law against the Polish minority for the spelling of names. It is hard to find another such symbol that speaks for itself more, showing what remains of the two countries’ strategic partnership,” Rzeczpospolita wrote.

More than the name-spelling law, the paper said the reduction is Polish-language education and the slow restoration of land rights in Lithuanian for displaced Poles have a larger negative effect on relations between the two neighbours.

Lithuania wants to develop relations with Poland with gas and electricity links, among other things, but progress is being slowed by issues such as the spelling law.