Latvia’s Riga City Council will hold an extraordinary meeting on 5 July 2023, following the resignation of mayor Martins Stakis, LETA reports. The meeting plans to appoint deputy mayor Vilnis Kirsis (New Unity) as the acting mayor of Riga. Deputy mayor Linda Ozola (Code for Riga) supported the appointment of Kirsis as acting mayor until…
Latvia’s Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins, leader of the New Unity party, urged his coalition partners to prioritise the national interest and set aside personal ambitions and concerns about their posts, LETA reports. Karins expressed his disappointment that only opposition parties, namely the Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS) and the Progressives, have attended talks initiated…
Latvia’s Minister of Agriculture, Didzis Šmits, has finally been given access to official secrets, the Agriculture Ministry announced, LETA reports. The Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB) confirmed that the minister has received a permit to access official secrets. Security agencies took six months to review his application. Šmits was the last minister without access to official…
Latvia’s Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins invited every Latvian living abroad to return home, The Baltic Times reports. He stressed their essential role in Latvia and assured them of a warm welcome upon their return. Speaking at the Kipsala International Exhibition Centre to diaspora participants of the Latvian Song and Dance Festival, Karins urged expatriates to…
The Latvian Trade Union of Education and Science Employees (LIZDA) will ask Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins to adopt urgent solutions to implement the agreement reached with the Ministry of Education and Science after a recent teacher strike, LETA reports. Earlier, LIZDA demanded that Education Minister Anda Caksa resign, which the minister refused to do, insisting…
Coalition partners in Latvia’s Riga City Council — New Unity, Code for Riga, National Alliance, and the Latvian Association of Regions (LRA) — are in talks to establish a new coalition, LETA reports. The factions regard the decision of mayor Martins Stakis to step down as “counterproductive” and emphasised the need to prevent snap elections,…
Tax revenue in Latvia totalled EUR 5.387bn in the first five months of 2023, which was EUR 600.9mn (12.6%) higher than in the same period of 2022, according to data from the Finance Ministry, LETA reported. Tax revenue thus exceeded the budget plan by EUR 166.4mn (3.2%). State tax revenue amounted to EUR 4.241bn (2.8%…
Latvia’s Jurmala city council plans to begin reconstruction work on the Dzintari overpass in autumn 2023, deputy mayor Janis Ledins told LETA. The city council allocated funds for the long-awaited project, which is estimated to cost over EUR 7mn. Earlier, the Latvian government approved a state loan for the project. The general contractor on the…
Representatives of the current ruling coalition in Latvia’s Riga city council — New Unity, Code for Riga, National Alliance (NA), and the Latvian Association of Regions (LRA) — called for “statesmanlike thinking” in the work of the coalition, LETA reports. In a public statement, the factions emphasised that the current coalition should continue. Deputy mayor…
