Latvian Political Monitor

I see this as the most essential problem, I defined it from the beginning. If the management of companies is not detached from the politburo, corruption and inefficiency will not diminish. There are two examples known worldwide. Singapore's Temasek (works excellently) and Malaysia's 1MDB, which ended with perhaps the biggest corruption scandal, the prime minister ended up behind bars. We need to seriously look towards eradicating Grafistāna at the root. The state capture structure overseen by Andris Grafs, the nightingale of Unity.

Ben, thanks for the concern. The steam hasn't vanished anywhere – it just no longer goes through the whistle but into the cylinders. Two fresh tasks: bitcoin in the deferred tax regime for investment accounts has now reached Saeima – I personally unstuck the stagnation in the cabinets. Supervisory oversight of small lenders at the Bank of Latvia – Saeima just adopted it. Both had sat in bureaucrats' drawers for years. It's easier to express yourself on Twitter. Writing a line into law is harder. I am now doing the latter. And communists are still communists. Only now I meet them not on Twitter but at budget tables.

I asked AI - and what did I myself do at the time when the Istanbul Convention was still not relevant? https://t.co/GOaFVtWPef

It has been said, sometimes it gets mixed up, it happens. Seeing all that superhuman work intensity, I understand humanly. I also understand that now is the hottest pre-election period, everyone tries to extrapolate any clumsier expression to madness. It's not that you don't do it too. Just to catch a slip. I can say concretely that the word 'privatization' has literally never appeared in my Development Fund plan.

@ECapligina @IvarsAuzins The oil price is only about 25% of the fuel price, even now. The rest is the refining cost, currently abnormally/historically large (diesel refining capacity in Europe is maxed out), and of course taxes (about half the price at the pump). It's all piled up together.

Privatization doesn't solve anything, because it is a one-time measure. You sell and drink away the money. You can sell something (for example, TET itself), or some building manager, but not privatization as an overarching motive. The most important goal in our envisioned Development Fund is to grow the value of the overall portfolio. Managing capital companies in the fragmented fiefdoms of ministries (shareholders) does not achieve this goal - each one pulls the blanket to their own side.

@ECapligina I already explained this in the thread. I repeat here because communism is bad 😄☝️ https://t.co/1v7W6P21nW

One of the reasons is communism. The idea that prices can be 'regulated'. In the stations that are empty, a maximum price was set. Workers happily ran and bought out. It's like in Soviet times - Brezhnev set a price for sausage and there was no sausage in the store. But under the counter for market price it was. Here we have Valainis also wanted to regulate both sausage and fuel prices. Didn't succeed, so fuel is at gas stations 🤷🏻‍♂️

@IlzeZvidrina Both in Germany and France, as is known, isolationists are gaining ever greater popularity. Currently the next EU funds envelope looks as usual, but what will be after 7 years, one can only guess.

A large part of school graduates are currently illiterate. They can't calculate and can barely read (spell out). Plus the old post-Soviet generation (Brezhnevists). This is a given, you simply have to take it into account.

@UldisVarnevichs The French basically opened the doors to their former colonies. Morocco, for example. French was accordingly available, since it had already been taught, convenient. It was similar for another colonial empire – Britain, which at one point controlled 25% of the world. Well, accordingly, whoever came, came.

In France, 11% of fuel stations have no fuel at all. There are many more where either diesel or petrol is missing. And the price in the rest is already approaching €2.50. Meanwhile, local activists think even worse than excel. We'll reduce taxes, take from hospitals, and fuel will appear in gas stations cheaply. As Brezhnev said, the economy must be economical.

@Fertelis I really don't have time to campaign, I have a lot of interesting work. And I don't want to talk nonsense, share Lenin's speeches either. That's the only way to get votes. Colleagues put up one picture at the flea market 'Latgale', well then thanks for that! That's my 'campaign'😄 https://t.co/wDIlFK9TaB

@instant_mk Impressive is that finally there is a stance not to bend, but to buy what army professionals consider necessary. Currently we have a professional in the AM post, not Münchausen. Second. In the Telia matter, what has been the Swedish position? They are and remain our partners, but there must be a stance.