Discussions on Latvia's plan to be submitted for European Recovery and Resilience Mechanism should have started already at the end of last year - MEP Zile

  • 2021-01-20
  • LETA/TBT Staff

RIGA - In order to be able to submit Latvia's plan for the European Recovery and Resilience Mechanism to the European Commission (EC) in time, discussions should have started at the end of last year, European Parliament Member Roberts Zile (National Alliance), a member of the Transport and Tourism Committee of the European Parliament (EP), spoke in an online discussion with representatives of the Latvian tourism and transport sectors.

He said that 11 countries have already submitted a version of their plan to the EC to see if they meet the criteria set out in the regulation. Zile pointed out that the EP's negotiations with the Council of the European Union on the European Recovery and Resilience Mechanism have been concluded and the regulation will legally enter into force in early February, which, according to politicians, is a starting shot for member state to submit their plans, which ''Latvia is currently preparing somewhere''.

The MEP admitted that he has information only about certain outlines of the plan.

Zile also outlined the work done or started in the field of transport and tourism at the EU level and reiterated that support for the tourism industry should be requested from the Latvian state. He emphasized that Latvia is the third most cost saving country in the eurozone, taking into account the level of the deficit for 2021 - Latvia only has Luxembourg and Cyprus ahead of it, so everyone has to draw their own conclusions, he said.

Speaking about downtime and part-time benefits, where Latvia partially uses the financial resources available in the EC program Sure, Zile pointed out that the remaining funds are too much. In his view, this means that there is something wrong with the criteria if the benefit is not available to those for whom it is intended. The MEP emphasized that the most important thing is speed, which is how quickly money flows into the account of workers or companies that need working capital. Only if the speed is adequate can it be said that state support is being provided correctly, the politician said.