Latvian president to come forth with legislative initiative about citizenship in fall

Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis intends to come forth with the legislative initiative concerning the Latvian citizenship for children born to Latvia's non-citizens in fall this year.

Vejonis said on the morning news program of the public Latvian Television today that, regardless of the opposition to his initiative among the politicians, he had decided to raise the issue of the Latvian citizenship. He will submit his legislative initiative to the parliament when it resumes work after the summer recess.

The Latvian president said he had been discussing the matter with experts for quite a while and was certain that he would have enough arguments to convince the lawmakers about the need to address the matter so that every person living in Latvia would feel like he or she belonged here, regardless of their ethnic origin or religious belief.

As reported, during the expert discussion in late 2016 the Latvian president suggested that children born to non-citizens in Latvia should become Latvian citizens the moment they had been born. "We must stop creating more citizens of a non-existent country and subjects of the former Soviet Union," he said.

Under the effective Latvian law, parents, who are Latvia's non-citizens, upon registration of their child can choose to register the child as a Latvian citizen but the Latvian citizenship is not given to non-citizens' children automatically upon their birth.