Latvian Political Monitor

@aiga_balode @austsaule Thank you!

Such a prime minister's response marks the next coalition that everyone is already talking about behind the scenes: AS, NA, LPV. So much in common - denunciation of the Istanbul Convention, support for quick loans, golden visas and deforestation. And now they will jointly fight against that 'European influence'. https://t.co/xpa427EoGa

Day No. 53 in the prime minister's chair (Friday, Aug 7) – unofficial visit to Liepāja, Grobiņa, Nīca 😊 I visited entrepreneurs, manufacturers, farmers, municipal deputies, market ladies, residents, the crazy Liepāja folk ⚙️ RK Metal – Grobiņa A modern metalworking company with around 200 employees producing high-level metal structures, equipment, and specialized solutions for export. Here the problem of labor costs was again very clearly voiced. 🤒 From the entrepreneurs' point of view, a big problem is the abuse of the sick leave system and how much of the sick period is covered by the employer. ⏱ The second topic – 100% surcharge for overtime and complex bureaucracy to introduce more flexible solutions in the company. By comparison, we also talked about 🇸🇪Sweden, where in some cases the overtime surcharge model is more flexible. A welder's salary in Latvia has already approached the level I once saw in 🇳🇱 the Netherlands, having worked 13 years in the equipment manufacturing industry. This shows very well how serious the skilled labor problem has become in Latvia. ❤️ RŪRE Care Home This was a very personal visit for me. RŪRE once allowed my cousin Mārtiņš Lauva to live out his last days with dignity and helped fulfill his final wishes. That is why I know the value of mobile hospice services not from documents but personally. And I am seriously concerned that the Ministry of Health's ill-considered planning and conditions could jeopardize a system that Latvia could rightly be proud of in recent years. RŪRE has simultaneously taken on a huge risk by developing five regional healthcare centers in Kurzeme in a short time. The problem is again the same – delayed state planning, extremely short deadlines and bureaucracy. As a result, there is a risk of not using millions of euros of 🇪🇺EU funding. 🏗 Liepāja SEZ – industrial park on the former 'Metalurgs' territory We talked about: ➖️ industrial territory development; ➖️ military industry opportunities; ➖️ new production plants; ➖️ labor availability. In Liepāja unemployment is historically very low – around 4%, with only about 1,737 unemployed people. That's good, but it creates another problem for entrepreneurs – there is no one to hire. There is a particular shortage of technical specialists. Here the weakness of our education system in STEM subjects – mathematics, physics, engineering – is strongly felt. 🏠 The second problem – the lack of housing stock. Even if a company finds a specialist in another Latvian city, the person often has nowhere normal to live in Liepāja. Among development projects – also YOKOHAMA's plan to create a tire plant in addition to the existing alloy wheel production. 📦 CALJAN – from Liepāja to the whole world This is one of the companies Latvia should truly be proud of. CALJAN produces high-level logistics and small-parcel conveyor systems for global clients such as: Amazon, FedEx, UPS, DPD, DHL, Walmart and others. 🌍 About 30,000 units have already been delivered worldwide. And the most impressive thing – the company has relocated its: ➖️ R&D; ➖️ engineering; ➖️ production; ➖️ head office from 🇸🇪 Sweden to Liepāja. This is exactly the Latvian economic model I want to see more of – not cheap labor, but knowledge, engineering, technology and global exports. 👷 CALJAN employs around 410 people. But they too can no longer find enough workers in Latvia. About 40 people are already being hired through a 🇱🇹Lithuanian labor leasing company – including engineers, programmers and electricians from 🇮🇳 India and the Philippines. And the money for labor intermediation goes to Lithuanian companies, not stays in Latvia. 🏛 Meeting at Liepāja City Council @liepaja With the city leadership we discussed: ➖️ The Local Government Financial Equalization Fund; ➖️ Liepāja's development; ➖️ The Port Law and its further progress. ✈️ NORSAF – green aviation fuel project A very ambitious idea – producing future synthetic aviation fuel in Liepāja using green hydrogen. 🇪🇺 In the coming years, aviation will face increasingly strict requirements for sustainable aviation fuel blending – in 2030, 2035, 2040 and beyond. At the moment, however, the technology is still extremely expensive. 💶 Approximate: ➖️ new fuel – €7,000/t; ➖️ traditional Jet Fuel – around €1,500/t; ➖️ before the Hormuz crisis – around €600–800/t. This shows how huge a technological and economic leap is still needed. 🥒 Liepāja Market I'll be honest – I liked it more than Rīga Central Market. 😄 Cozier, more Latvian, and with a feeling that there are more local producers. In the shopping basket: 🍞 very good bread baked in Liepāja; 🍗 Rubeņi smoked chicken; 🥒 lightly salted cucumbers; 🍄 and, of course, chanterelles – because I have no time to go to the forest myself. ☹️ 📺 In between, also an interview with Liepāja TV. - about MP compensation 🏭 Liepāja Papīrs An impressive Latvian-level plant specializing in printing adhesive labels. 👷 Around 120 employees. The company invests very actively in modern production equipment and automation. Not because they don't want people, but because there simply aren't any. Training a new specialist takes up to two years. Hence, the labor shortage effectively forces companies to invest in technologies that allow them to produce more with fewer workers. 📦 Due to the Hormuz Strait conflict, the company has purchased about twice as much paper stock to ensure continuity of production. This in turn means more money frozen in the warehouse and pressure on production costs. 🖨 FORTIUS – printing house A smaller local printing and labeling company. And such companies are also very necessary – almost every city needs its own local printer that can quickly serve small and individual orders. 🥛 Kazdanga company “Baltu Piens” Two enterprising women joined forces, mortgaged their properties and used ALTUM financing to buy a farm. This story is also personally close to me, because my wife's parents live in Kazdanga. But the numbers raise very serious questions. 💶 The loan principal has been repaid about €50,000, but €39,713 has already been paid in interest. The interest rate – almost 9%. Moreover, to review the loan repayment schedule, ALTUM requires an additional fixed payment of 0.5% of the remaining amount. Then my question is simple: Is ALTUM's task not to be a state development financial institution that helps companies grow? If state funding conditions weaken a company more than help it develop, something is wrong with the system. Moreover, the new farm managers still need to invest about €459,000 in treatment facilities that the previous owners had not fixed. 🏎 Garage 1965 – Latvian rally history museum For all petrolheads – a must-see! 🔥 A very enjoyable museum. In Liepāja not only 'the wind is born' – there are very deep roots of Latvian rally and motorcycle sport. 👥 Meeting with Liepāja residents at the Latvian Society House 👥 Meeting with residents in Nīca 🧀 Nīca cheese and ZS “Skrodis” Again the seasonal labor problem. Vegetable and berry growers need people for specific seasonal work, but existing rules make attracting labor extremely complicated and expensive. Entrepreneurs point out that the set €1,700 salary threshold for attracting foreign labor for this type of work is too high and, given current agricultural product prices, makes production costs uncompetitive. And the reality in the countryside is harsh – local people often cannot be found even for such pay. Young people simply don't come to cut cabbage or pick berries. 🧀 But the cheese – seriously – one of the best I've tasted in Latvia. 🌅 End of the day – Red Sun Buffet Beach Bar Meeting with the owner, who has run a family business on the Liepāja seaside for 17 seasons, working both summer and winter. Here, too, the reality of the Latvian labor market is very clearly visible. 🇺🇦 Ukrainian families work at the company, engaging in work across several generations. They serve clients in Latvian, but the Ukrainian women have also introduced their own delicious traditions to the menu. 🎶 And every evening – live music with high-level musicians. What did I take from these two regional days? 🇱🇻 In Latvia we have fantastic entrepreneurs, farmers and manufacturers. They invest. Take risks. Export. Invent. Build factories. Take over markets. Create jobs. But at almost every stop I heard the same words: ⚠️ bureaucracy; ⚠️ labor shortage; ⚠️ tax and labor costs; ⚠️ slow state decisions; ⚠️ ill-considered regulation; ⚠️ difficulties obtaining financing; ⚠️ officials' fear of taking responsibility. The state's task should not be to train entrepreneurs in an obstacle course. The state's task is to create an environment where a person ready to risk, invest and create jobs can do so. For me, such visits are far more valuable than dozens of presentations in Rīga. Because only in a factory, in a field, in a warehouse, on a farm or at an entrepreneur's table can you understand what actually works in Latvia and what urgently needs fixing. @Apvienotais_

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The situation with foreigners in Latvia is much, much, much more serious than it seems from each person's personal point of view. Because the real scale of the threat is hidden from us by existing politicians and the media. There is a possibility that they themselves don't even realize it and have long since lost control of the situation. Latvia is perishing, and it is happening live on air. This article on the Telos portal helps open eyes a little (in the first comment). MMN is for them leaving. The word 'deportations' is disliked by many, but for Latvia's survival there is only one precondition: they must leave here, and there are no other options. Unfortunately, Kulberg's party AS will not help there, because they represent the interests of some big businessmen (LDDK and LTRK), whom they have brought here for their own needs. But MMN will cooperate only with those parties whose hand will not tremble on this issue and whose heart will be for preserving Latvia for our grandchildren too.

Dombrava on technical problems at the border: Cameras were not connected to the border guard unit.

PRO rank-and-file members for the second day in one breath are proclaiming that @JanisDombrava is a 'threat to Latvia's security' and that he is unjustifiably 'lecturing Spain,' that they feel 'ashamed on behalf of others' and that any moment now Spain's NATO contingent will leave Latvia. It is precisely their hysterical tone that is why I will comment on this at all. The only difference is that, unlike PRO & co, I have not merely heard of some letter from 'Panorāma's' account without content or references - I know the letter's content and context. First, about the method that must be eradicated from Latvian politics. Every time the adoption of some political decision turns out to be disadvantageous or unpleasant for someone, the same card is played - 'the allies will take offence,' 'the allies will leave.' We heard this when we considered Latvia's withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention - the same characters who today cry over Dombrava's letter to Spain threatened that Canada would reconsider its NATO presence in Latvia. Now - the Spanish. This rhetoric is not any concern for security; it is discrediting allied reliability to score political points - as if our NATO partners were frivolous and capricious dilettantes who determine their commitments to Latvia by how much they like one minister's letter to another minister. If anyone really thinks that about Spain or Canada - that is an insult to them, not to Dombrava. On the content, which none of the shouters has read, yet they know everything well enough to comment. The letter is not an ultimatum and creates no new obligations for Latvia - on the contrary, it expresses solidarity with Spain over the victims in Ceuta, offers technical assistance and the experience Latvia has gained in five years of hybrid war conditions on the Belarusian border. This aligns exactly with what government representatives said in January during the Saeima foreign policy debate: Latvia is ready to share experience within the solidarity mechanism, but we will not accept new migrants and will not pay for them. The letter also names the core of the problem - the legalization of more than half a million illegal migrants in Spain, which Latvia rightly does not consider merely a Spanish internal affair, because the consequences of this decision will affect the entire Schengen area. Latvia has just also joined a letter from 22 EU leaders calling for coordinated action to address this crisis - at the same time as Italy, Finland and Denmark openly demanded Spain's exclusion from the Schengen area. The 22 EU leaders warned about exactly the same thing - that the legalization of illegal migrants has sent a signal that illegal entry can turn into legal residence. By itself, a letter from one EU member state's minister to another country's minister is nothing unusual - interior ministries in Europe regularly communicate and coordinate with each other - that is daily practice, not a scandal. And last. This letter arose on the basis left as a legacy by the previous government - the question of the migrant solidarity mechanism within the EU migration pact, unresolved at the political level for nine months. It is a direct failure of former interior minister Kozlovskis. Most likely in autumn Latvia will have to make payments precisely because Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain have not wanted the alternative (technical) support Latvia offered - because this issue was never raised at the political level. Dombrava finally did that with the help of this letter. I will remind that in international diplomacy such mutual working correspondence between officials is not usually published. Unless it has been deliberately politicized or leaked. Here everyone can speculate about the reasons and how this information reached the media. This way PRO will not succeed in washing their own ugliness with the Rasima affair into oblivion.

Friends, in Latvia all problems are finally solved! Now the time has come to roll up our sleeves and also lift poor Spain into the sun! Latvia can! https://t.co/HfQUkRaOlQ

As I promised, changes will be made and the proposals of the Riga Heat investigation commission and the State Control will be put into use to reduce the heat tariff in Riga. Thank you @JanisVitenbergs and KEM VS @LigaKurevska for a very well-developed plan with clear deadlines and responsible parties to make the necessary changes in the short and long term.

@AndrisKulbergs @RSiltums Among all those flattering words, could you at least honestly say that you again want to reinstate golden visas as it once was, or will you explain your sponsors' wishes differently?

@Janis1983 Strengthen the border, don't steal money, not close the border crossing point.. so two completely different things.. check out this tweet from 2016.. 10 years have passed, and still no result.. https://t.co/WOTd8USG12

If the government @AndrisKulbergs supports this NA (Ministry of Interior) initiative, then they seem to have seriously ‘tied you up’. But on the other hand, that's good, because then NA can hope for 1% in Latgale. What does the green border have to do with illegal immigrants? About 45k Latvian citizens travel back and forth each year. They will still go through Lithuania. What will we achieve? We'll load ours onto Lithuania, because unlike us they have enough resources 😀. Moreover, the 🇱🇹 border with 🇧🇾 is 500 km longer than ours. And they will still thank us, skim the cash (fuel, eateries, vignettes, little taxes etc.). Not to mention cargo (https://t.co/gFTUkUoLwZ). I understand it's pre-election time, but there should be a bit of common sense… 😀😀 And all this a week after Estonian border guards rushed to help Latvian colleagues. We're really living the high life… possibly a prelude to the neighbors soon starting to build Rail Baltica for us too :)

MMN will have individual freedom for everyone to choose their own answer on SK. Personally, I am against it. It is quite clear to me that the organizations that campaign for Istanbul are exactly the same organizations that most ardently campaign for accepting refugees. Therefore it is clear that our women's safety means nothing to them; there is another plan. I have 3 daughters, and that is why I am against the Istanbul Convention.

Proposes to develop quotas to reduce the number of third-country students