Karins to start new coalition talks

RIGA - Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins (New Unity) will start new coalition talks, as the premier said on Friday.

The Union of the Greens and Farmers and the Progressives will also participate in the negotiations. Karins went on to say that the National Alliance and the United List would too be invited to the coalition talks.

At the same time, Karins emphasized that he was not considering stepping down because he was not going to give up on his Cabinet reshuffle plans.

As reported, in order to make the government work more dynamic, Karins has proposed that the politician of the National Alliance Rihards Kols takes the post of Foreign Minister, the United List takes over the Economics Ministry and New Unity - the Environmental Protection and Regional Development Ministry.

This would mean a rotation of ministries among the partners, as currently New Unity is in charge of the Foreign Ministry, the National Alliance is in charge of the Economics Ministry and the United List is in charge of the Environmental Protection and Regional Development Ministry.

The proposal also includes that the New Unity would take over the position of the head of the Saeima national security committee from the National Alliance.

It appears now that the United List and National Alliance have not accepted Karins' proposal.

The United List and the National Alliance did not accept Karins' proposal.

Karins said previously that he wants to expand the coalition in order to achieve smoother work on the school network, improving the health care situation, labor issues, promoting state capital companies to the stock exchange and social issues, such as the ratification of the Istanbul Convention "as a symbolic but deeply significant gesture of the Saeima" and the implementation of the Constitutional Court decision related to cohabitation regulation.

Currently, the ruling coalition consists of the New Unity, the National Alliance and the United List, but after the presidential elections, in which the coalition parties could not agree on support for one candidate, Prime Minister Karins has started talks on a possible coalition extension with the Greens/Farmers and the Progressives, to which both the National Alliance and United List objected.