Translated material
Visit of the decade
The President of Latvia will not take a Russophobe minister to Moscow
At the end of this week, Latvian President Valdis Zatlers (pictured) is coming to Russia. He will visit Moscow and St. Petersburg, his visit will last until December 22. The guest will be accompanied by an impressive delegation - the presidential office had to rent a charter Boeing with 200 seats, in which at least half of the seats will be occupied by entrepreneurs who have submitted more than a hundred applications to participate in the presidential trip. The delegation includes Metropolitan of the Latvian Orthodox Church Alexander, one of the leaders of the opposition political association “Concord Center” and the mayor of Riga Nil Ushakov, the ministers of economy, internal affairs and environment, and the head of the Bank of Latvia.In Moscow, on the first day of the visit, the guest will take part in a business forum (the same will take place in St. Petersburg), then Patriarch Kirill will receive him, then negotiations will take place between the presidents of Russia and Latvia. Following this, the ministers of the two countries are expected to sign agreements on cooperation in the fight against organized crime, in emergency situations and environmental protection, on the avoidance of double taxation, on partnership between regions and simplified border crossing for border residents.
The instruments of ratification under the social security treaty signed in December 2007 will be exchanged. It allows the summation of length of service earned in both countries. After all, now, for example, “Soviet” experience at closed enterprises located on the territory of Latvia, but with a central personnel department in Russia, is not counted when calculating pensions. The seniority was “taken away” only from non-citizen pensioners, most of them Russian-speaking. The agreement is expected to come into force in January 2011.
Negotiations between the sectoral ministers of the two countries are also scheduled. Latvian Minister of Economy and co-chairman of the bilateral intergovernmental commission Artis Kampars told the press that he “has three main things to do” in Moscow: “I really want to achieve serious progress in determining with Gazprom a formula for long-term gas prices in the direction of reducing it, which is inadequately high tariffs on timber exports. We will also talk about the investment protection agreement, which has been stuck for three years, mainly due to the fault of Russia.”
Valdis Zatlers visited Moscow for the first time as president in May of this year, taking part in the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the Victory. Since the upcoming trip will be the first official visit of the head of Latvian state to Russia in the last ten years, Riga has tried to improve the information background of relations between the two countries. Back in 2009, in Latvia, “due to a reduction in funding,” the government commission “to calculate the damage from the Soviet occupation” was closed. In February of this year, parliament voted to allocate about 35 thousand dollars for the maintenance of military graves. In June, an agreement was signed on cooperation on the issue of arrangement of the state border.
However, the Latvian authorities are still making attempts to rewrite military history - this includes the conviction of the Soviet partisan Vasily Kononov, and this summer's judicial permission to hold a neo-Nazi rally on the day the Nazis entered Riga. The problem of mass “non-citizenship” of Russian-speaking Latvians has not been resolved. The Presidential Office said that Valdis Zatlers will not shy away from difficult issues in Moscow, but “they will not be the focus of attention of the parties”: “The President is ready to talk about issues that are significant for both sides. We hope that the presidents of Latvia and Russia will agree on the creation of a commission of historians, since we believe that it is most reasonable to entrust the understanding of the events of the 20th century to it. Although we have prepared to talk about the occupation, he will not be among the first.”
The President will not take Foreign Minister Girts Valdis Kristovskis with him. Recently, his email correspondence with the American Latvian doctor Aivar Slutsis was made public by one of the Latvian Internet resources. “As a doctor, I would not be able to treat Russians in Latvia in the same way as Latvians,” Slutsis complained. “I agree with your views and assessments,” replied the minister. As a result, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Andris Teikmanis will go to Russia instead. It is possible that the prospect of re-election of 55-year-old Mr. Zatlers for a second term will depend on the results of his visit to Moscow. The president in Latvia is elected by parliament, and the term of office of the current head of state, elected in May 2007, ends in May 2011.
“If during the visit the achievements of officials from both countries are not only demonstrated, but it is also possible to agree on long-term projects of interstate cooperation, then Valdis Zatlers’ trip can be called successful,” the head of the Harmony Center parliamentary faction told Vremya Novostey. Janis Urbanovich. Such projects, in his opinion, could be the construction of the Kaliningrad nuclear power plant, improvement of railway communication between the two countries, and reconstruction of the Riga-Moscow highway.