Translated material
Scary money
The head of the Latvian Foreign Ministry is afraid of Russian capital
Latvian Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks alarmed the country's business community with a call to limit the influx of Russian investment. In an interview with the Neatkariga Rita Avise newspaper, he said that the pressure of Russian capital should be avoided, and therefore its influx should be treated with caution, and in key areas of the Latvian economy, efforts should be made to attract investments from the European Union and the United States. To this, the famous Latvian businessman Julius Krumins said yesterday that Latvian businessmen see Russian investments not as a threat to national security, but as a means of strengthening friendship between the two countries.According to Mr. Pabriks, “it is absolutely clear that thanks to oil resources, Russia’s economic influence is increasing and it is ready to use this for political purposes.” The diplomat admitted that Moscow’s desire to strengthen its position in the world, including in the Baltic countries, is “completely natural.” But he immediately made it clear that the participation of Russian capital in a joint project for the three Baltic countries to build a nuclear power plant on the territory of Lithuania would be undesirable, since it jeopardizes national security.
What makes the words of the head of Latvian diplomacy especially poignant is the fact that they were voiced just a day after the meeting of the Russian-Latvian intergovernmental commission, at which the topic was specifically about attracting Russian investment to Latvia. On July 20, the first full-fledged meeting in more than ten years between the co-chairs of this commission - Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin and Latvian Finance Minister Oskar Spurdzins - took place in Riga. Its main result was the decision of the two ministers to create a group within the intergovernmental commission designed to resolve problems in the transport sector.
Problem number one is colossal queues at checkpoints near the border settlements of Grebnevo and Terekhovo. Mr. Levitin discussed this topic in detail with the Minister of Transport of Latvia, Ainar Slesers. Both of them came to the conclusion that the issue concerns not only their countries, but also the European Union, since the Latvian border with Russia is the external border of the EU. The Latvian minister promised to make efforts in the near future to organize a trilateral Russia-Latvia-EU meeting with the participation of European Commissioner for Transport Jacques Barot.
According to Mr. Shlesers, the Grebnevo and Terekhovo checkpoints have already exhausted their capacity, so another checkpoint is needed. At the end of 2008, it is planned to open the Vientuli checkpoint for trucks. It is expected that it will be able to handle up to 150 trucks per day, but Riga believes that this is not enough. Both Latvia and Russia admit that the introduction of electronic declaration of goods could significantly change the situation with queues at the border. But this is not yet possible due to the lack of agreement on access to the information databases of a country that is not a member of the EU, that is, Russia.
Slesers told his Russian colleague about the plans of the Latvian airline Airbaltic to increase the number of flights to Russia. In particular, it is planned to lay a direct route to Sochi, the capital of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. The airline is thinking about increasing the number of flights on the Riga-Moscow route, but, as Slesers noted, this project will require the participation of Aeroflot.
Igor Levitin visited the once famous Riga Carriage Works, where he spoke about the resumption of cooperation in the production of passenger trains. “After the collapse of the Soviet Union, each of us began to work on our own, but nothing good came of it,” said the Russian guest, emphasizing that only cooperation guarantees competitiveness in the world market. It was also discussed in Riga that one of the main measures to strengthen cooperation should be the conclusion of agreements on the abolition of double taxation and the protection of investments. This would allow increasing the volume of direct Russian investment in the Latvian economy.