All About Latvia

“It’s good to see that the army is well dressed and equipped. I myself am surprised to see so much positive. The army should make the nation proud.”

– 31 August 2007 President Valdis Zatlers during a visit of a military base.

From the Baltic Times:

Three years on from their accession as full EU member states, 5 percent of those surveyed think Lithuania is one of the countries currently applying to join, while 4 percent believe Estonia and Latvia are also hoping to join the European club some time soon.

Recent additions to the blogroll:

1. Wally Kranich. Wally is a funny man, who makes me want to figure out who he is in real life and where he works. Aleks says Wally is a good, funny read.

2. Lituanica is an excellent source for all your Lithuanian news. If you know where Lithuania is, that is.

3. Fotolat is a photo blog devoted to Latvia. It’s great, but it hasn’t been updated for some time. What’s going on, Sam?

Helsingin Sanomat interviews our president Valdis Zatlers, who foolishly believes that bribes to doctors will cease by the end of the year.

“I see light at the end of the tunnel, and I believe that by the end of the year this will not be a problem in Latvia”, he said in an interview this week.

Kudos to Estonia for getting a Second Life.

RIGA – The season for gas price negotiations has come upon us.

Lithuania fears a gas price hike from the Russian monopoly giant Gazprom. Latvia and Estonia awaiting their turn in Moscow. If you trust Russian sources, the price for gas will be raised to European level for those two countries as well.

If the Lukashenko’s Kingdom of Belarus is to serve as a pattern, the Russians can play tough.

Lithuanian Prime Minister already suggested to negotiate prices with Gazprom together with other EU countries, presumably Latvia and Estonia.

“We have a chance to involve other European Union countries since we are not the only ones with such prices hanging over. It would not be easy for Lithuania to negotiate alone in this case,” Gediminas Kirkilas said this morning.

Officially, Gazprom held off raising prices for three years because of the so-called transitional period when the three countries joined the European Union. But really, it was in exchange for gaining a share in three gas distribution companies in three countries. Gazprom received 37.1 per cent in Lietuvos dujos, 34 per cent in Latvijas gaze, and 37.02 per cent in Eesti Gaas.

But as the EU considers separating supply and distribution channels, it also considers limiting non-EU ownership in newly created companies. It will likely impact Russian presence in the energy market, especially in the Baltics.

Given the Baltics desire to limit their dependence on Russian sources of energy this would certainly be a welcome step. As much as Russia protects its strategic market from foreign investors, the EU ought to do the same. But for now, the Baltic States are wrangling with the construction of a new nuclear plant in Lithuania and interconnecting power grids between three Baltic states, Poland and Sweden to limit their dependence on Russian energy sources.

Update:Robert Amsterdam suggests the EU reciprocity clause – disallowing foreign investors to “purchase energy assets unless they are equally open to investors in their country” – is targeted specifically at Gazprom Hat tip: Peteris

Latvia’s inflation is still the highest among 27 European countries – a whooping 9.5 per cent in July. The government launched its anti-inflation plan earlier this year with forcing banks to verify people’s income when they apply for mortgage. The number of mortgages decreased.

The next step for the government will come in the fall when it will have to follow through the second point of its anti-inflation measure: creating a balanced budget.

It’ll be tough as the capital city finishes up the bridge across the Daugava river at an estimated cost of 100 million lats ($200 million), and plans to construct a national library unfold. All the while we continue to support tons of welfare and a very large government.

I’m not against welfare by any means.

But when you hear that people have been on unemployment for nine months, you begin to dislike the welfare system. When you hear the government doesn’t invest in research and development, you become outraged. When you learn that the money a business will lose money by reinvesting it, you pull your hair out.

I also think the government, with all its ministries, commissions, boards, agencies, can be consolidated, losing some staff and developing some efficiency. Doing more but requiring less money.

At the same time, teachers demand a pay increase. They need money. Postal workers demand a pay increase. They need money.

Regardless of the highest inflation in 10 years, the government of Aigars Kalvitis insists the plan is working. We just have to wait, Kalvitis says.

And the pessimistic public expects the worst: higher inflation and, God forbid, devaluation.

RIGA – A small southern Latvian town has attracted the attention of the Russian media in their feeble attempt to show that the Tallinn “syndrome” is taking over the Baltic states.

At the end of 2005, fathers of the town of Bauska, 20 km north of Lithuanian border, decided to move a memorial stone commemorating fallen Red Army soldiers from a local park to the military cemetery. The monumental rock – with no remains nearby – with inscription “To liberators of 1944″ was erected in 1988. And moved this month.

The Russian ambassador Viktor Kalyuzhny told local media that he’s heard about this for the first time on Monday.

“It’s a complete stupidity that caught us off guard,” Kalyuzhny told reporters yesterday.

It’s not the first time the ambassador of Russia place certain appendages into his mouth. A few weeks ago, Kalyuzhny invited our new president Valdis Zatlers to come to Moscow for an official visit, causing an uproar among Latvian diplomats because the invitation didn’t come from Putin.

Regardless of Kalyuzhny’s statements, the Bauska officials insist they consulted the Russian Embassy at the time the decision was made. The city mayor Janis Miculis provided too many details of a visit to Bauska by Russian embassy staff to the Latvian daily Diena, all confirmed by the former editor-in-chief of a local newspaper.

When a reporter asked the Russian ambassador how he could not know what his staff was doing, his response was precious.

“Now you will believe the local government?” he said.

Not surprising however is the fact that the official Moscow is relatively quiet about the incident in the Latvian town of 11,000 people. None of the usual rhetoric of Latvian fascists’ desire to rewrite history can be found in the foreign ministry’s press releases in the last few days.

The scandal around the Bauska rock is that of the Russian Embassy’s making.

At this point, Moscow doesn’t want to make waves before the September ratification of the border treaty with Latvia in the Duma.

Someone should have told Kalyuzhny that.

Photo of the city of Bauska was taken here.

TALLINN – A majority of the people living in Estonia believe
improvement in the relationship between Russia and Estonia depends on both countries, a recent survey found.

The survey published in the Estonian media on Wednesday found that 58 per cent of ethnic Estonians and 64 per cent of ethnic Russians say improving the relationship between the two countries will take political will in both Moscow and Tallinn.

Ninety per cent of Estonians and 73 per cent of non-Estonians see the relationship between Russia and Estonia as bad.

However, those who blame only Tallinn or Moscow is marginal. Only 9 per cent of Estonians believe it is up to Russia alone to improve the relationship, while 19 per cent of non-Estonians believe it is up to Estonia.

“The political line in Moscow is aimed at aggravating relations,”
member of the Estonian parliament Sven Mikser told Estonian daily Postimees.

“There is no good will in Russia and the same applies for Russia‘s relations with other countries. It would be naive to think that Russia would be interested in improving relations right now.”

As ways to improve relations between the two countries,
respondents suggested seeking political compromise on both sides.

The relationship between Moscow and Tallinn hit a new low in April after the Estonian government decided to relocate a Soviet-era World War II monument from the centre of Tallinn to a military cemetery.

Ethnic Estonians see the monument as a reminder of their state‘s illegal occupation by the USSR, but most ethnic Russians see it as a tribute to Russian sacrifices in WWII.

The move sparked riots in Tallinn and a diplomatic row abroad.
Russia accused Estonia of “blasphemy” and supporting Nazism, while Estonia accused Russian state web servers of hosting a series of cyber-attacks on Estonian government servers.