Russische minderheid in Letland wil via EU meer rechten afdwingen (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Latvia's only Russian-speaking MEP, Tatjana Zdanoka (Greens), is pushing for EU action on the rights of non-Latvian speakers in her home country.

Some 450,000 ethnic Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians currently live in Latvia but are being denied citizenship unless they pass a test on the Latvian language and take an oath of loyalty to the state.

The group, which represents almost 20 per cent of the country's population, cannot vote, cannot hold most types of public posts and requires a visa to visit other EU countries, except for Estonia, Lithuania and Denmark.

Many non-citizens who were born in Latvia refuse to take the test on the grounds that it is degrading, while others are too old and infirm to complete the examination.

On top of this, Ms Zdanoka believes the current government is abusing citizenship red tape to keep Russian-speaking activists out of power, as well as backsliding on promises made to the EU in the pre-enlargement phase.

"The goal is to create a privileged status for ethnic Latvians in society. It is ethnic profiling - already 94 per cent of all officials are pure Latvians", the MEP told EUobserver.

Ms Zdanoka added that Latvia is violating European racial discrimination laws.

The MEP has called on the European Parliament to send a fact-finding mission to the country and to recommend that the Commission initiates Treaty violation procedures under Articles 211 and 226.

Riga stands firm

But the Latvian government is standing firm on the subject.

"In my opinion the oath is not bad. To be a citizen implies more than being simply born somewhere, it requires certain obligations and duties," Riga's ambassador to the EU, Eduards Stiprais, responded.

"The government has the final say in the naturalisation of individual persons, not the courts," he added.

Other sources pointed out that another 450,000 non-ethnic Latvians have already obtained citizenship and that another 1,000 to 2,000 applications are being processed by the Institute of Naturalisation every month.

"Most of the young people will naturalise and exercise their full political rights, but there will remain a hardcore of older Russian speakers and hardliners who will refuse and who will keep on calling for the EU to dictate automatic citizenship moves to Latvia," a western European diplomat explained.

He added that there is a small risk that the hardcore fringe could organise protests around sensitive subjects such as Russian language education in the next few years.

But the high-level source also remarked that the Institute of Naturalisation is one of the least politicised and most professionally-run administrations in Latvia.

He added that the European Commission is highly unlikely to take any action on the subject because it would be tantamount to admitting that the previous college had got it wrong when assessing Latvia's conformity with the acquis communautaire.

"The EU's position has been for a very long time that Latvia has remained fully within the Copenhagen Criteria. The Russian government, which has a certain kinship with the case, maintains the same position," the source indicated.

Mistrust brews

The diplomat conceded that certain high-ranking Latvian statesmen view the Russian-speaking minority with mistrust as having anti-independent tendencies and unhealthy links with Moscow.

He added that some right-wing Latvian politicians also fear that a huge new bloc of naturalised voters would lean toward leftist parties and undermine their position in parliament.

But on the other hand, the Russian-speaking group has a well-organised leadership with a strong ideology and does maintain "political ties" with Moscow, he cautioned.