Saeima turns down Constitutional amendments granting state language status to Russian

  • 2011-12-22

RIGA - During an emergency session this morning, Saeima turned down Constitutional amendments which would have granted state language status to Russian, reports LETA.

60 parliament members voted against the amendments, whilst Saeima members from Harmony Center abstained from the vote. Not one parliament member voted for the Constitutional amendments.

A referendum on the amendments will now take place. It is likely that the referendum will be held on Feb. 18.

As reported, from Nov. 1 - 31, a total of 187,378 voters signed the petition for staging a referendum on granting the status of a state language to Russian, according to the Central Election Commission’s preliminary data.