Only good Russians will be allowed to come to Latvia
This week, the Saeima will suspend the issuance of temporary residence permits to Russian and Belarusian citizens, as well as give the executive the right to revoke residence permits that have already been issued.
The Saeima is working at breakneck speed. The amendments to the Immigration Law, which would close Latvia to Russian and Belarusian citizens, were adopted in the first reading on March 31 and will be amended in the second and final reading on April 7. The Saeima does not bother to reflect on the consequences of its decisions. Such negligence is a malady that has been long been present in the Saeima and against which medicine has even been developed. Namely, the adoption of laws requires that for each new law or amendment to existing law, an annotation be written which must include an answer to the question "What impact might the law have on the development of society and the economy?" This is the form that, in this case, counts as having been completed with the answer that "the draft law does not affect this area".
Once again, the Saeima is striking a pose that is visualized by an ostrich sticking its head in the sand. The amendments to the law were submitted by the Defense, Home Affairs and Prevention of Corruption Committee (signed by its chairman Juris Rancāns of the New Conservative Party (Jaunā konservatīvā partija)) and approved by the Saeima practically unanimously. 76 MPs voted in favor of the amendment to the Immigration Law as amended on March 31, one MP voted against; there were no abstentions or absences. It is important for MPs to show their loyalty to the executive, which promises them salary increases at least at the rate of actual inflation. That is why MPs twist the law so that enforcement depends solely on the executive, without parliamentary and public scrutiny.
In the case of immigration, the right of the executive to act at the discretion of officials is nothing new. Section 34 of the Immigration Law, as it now stands, lists 39 points with many sub-points under which "the issue or registration of a residence permit shall be refused if..." Such a meticulous list should prevent arbitrariness on the part of officials, but the condition for refusal to issue a residence permit in paragraph 19 of this Section is that "competent State institutions have provided information based on which the foreigner is to be prohibited from entering and staying in the Republic of Latvia". In practice, this means that the admission or non-admission of a person to Latvia is determined by the "competent" status of certain authorities, by definition, and not by the content or reliability of the information they provide. In the future, a verbose explanation will be added to this point, stating that these authorities "have established, inter alia, that the foreigner has acted contrary to the interests of state and public security, or has publicly glorified, denied or justified genocide, crimes against humanity, crimes against peace or war crimes". The same addition will be added in the future to a few more paragraphs on the withdrawal of residence permits already issued, as already provided for in Sections 35 and 36 of the Immigration Law.
The new additions are not intended as a narrowing of the rights of the "competent institutions", by refusing residence permits only to those who are successfully accused, or at least suspected, of no less than crimes against humanity". Nor are these amendments aimed exclusively at Russian and Belarusian nationals. They are the reason for the addition to the transitional provisions of the Immigration Law of paragraph 54, which states that all "issuance of first temporary residence permits to citizens of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus is suspended until June 30, 2023", followed by further paragraphs with exceptions for Russian and Belarusian citizens who will still be able to obtain residence permits. The exceptions are based on humanitarian grounds. Residence permits will be issued so that children can live with their parents or guardians. It will be possible for Russian and Belarusian citizens to continue their studies and to participate in scientific cooperation projects in Latvia. Not all reasons for staying in Latvia are so pleasant, as people will be kept in Latvia on a temporary basis "if the pre-trial investigation authorities or a court need the foreigner to stay in the Republic of Latvia until the criminal investigation is completed or the case is heard in court", as well as to complete a divorce.
Although the annotation of the law says that its amendments will not affect society and the economy, in reality they will have an impact. The lack of impact is only written into the Saeima documents so that the Saeima can shake off responsibility for this impact, the management of which is handed over to the government. The transitional provisions of the amendments to the law include among the exceptions the issuance of residence permits cases "in connection with employment which falls under European Union laws or is necessary for the employment of employees of an enterprise which has at least 51% of the capital of legal persons or nationals of an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Member State and which transfers its activities to the Republic of Latvia from the Russian Federation or the Republic of Belarus". The next paragraph of the transitional provisions then instructs the Cabinet of Ministers to develop by May 3 a procedure for issuing or refusing residence permits applied for directly on the grounds of employment.
Thus, at least in theory or in principle, Latvia does not withdraw from the competition for people and their money (from people with the ability to generate money), such as the one just described in Neatkarīgā's interview with Konstantin Siniushin, a businessman who moved from Russia to Latvia four years ago:
- The people who leave Russia today are very different from those who stay in Russia. I have given several interviews to several English-language publications, during which we have coined a new term for those leaving Russia - eurorussians. These eurorussians have passports from the Russian Federation and mentally associate themselves with Russian culture, but they fully accept and support European culture and European values. Those who have left Russia in recent years are far from being people who go in search of cheap and tasty sausages.
*****
Be the first to read interesting news from Latvia and the world by joining our Telegram and Signal channels.