"The mandate of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's mission to Latvia has expired. This was the outcome strongly and actively supported by the U.S.A. But now we expect your government and Parliament to amend the election laws as courageously promised by your president," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said in a letter to Indulis Berzins, Latvia's foreign minister.
The European Union's member states have also agreed with the stand taken by OSCE that urged Latvia to amend its election laws. The OSCE is considering appointing a high commissioner to Latvia to continue supervising its attitudes toward local Russians, Dutch Foreign Minister Joziass Artsen announced on Jan. 22.
Vike-Freiberga promised to push through amendments to the election law last December in order to get the OSCE mission, usually present in countries in turmoil, out of Latvia. The mission left, but Latvia has so far failed to do its homework.
In marathon negotiations with all parties and groups represented in the Parliament on Jan. 21, the president failed to convince all but one tiny group, the New Christian Party, on the necessity of the amendments. This failure could threaten Latvia's chances of getting into NATO and the EU.
The Latvian president will try to fight off that impression on her two-week visit to the United States. Before departing on Jan. 29, she told journalists that her main task on this trip will be to promote the country's efforts and achievements on the way to NATO, as well as gaining confirmation of firm U.S. support for NATO enlargement at the Prague summit later this year.
Vike-Freiberga will try to persuade officials that, "Latvia in its determination to enter NATO has not in any way tired or changed its mind, become unsteady or doubtful. This is the last thing we can afford," she said.
In Estonia, the decision to scrap language requirements for election candidates was made last year and was a key element in declaring the OSCE mission's work as complete.
Lithuania was the only Baltic state not to have been assigned an OSCE mission because of its far smaller proportion of Russian speakers who settled there under the Soviet rule.
To discuss existing problems with the use of Latvian as a state language, the president founded the state language commission, which had its first meeting on Jan. 23.
Latvia's three ruling coalition parties, which previously rejected the president's proposal, agreed on Jan. 28 to form a working group to review it. The group's first meeting is scheduled for Feb. 1.
Under the effective election law candidates without top-level language proficiency cannot run for Parliament or local government.
The Latvian language is spoken by 79 percent of Latvia's population, according to the results of the nation's census carried out in 2000. Latvian is spoken by 52.3 percent of ethnic Russians.The number of people in Latvia speaking Latvian has grown by 17.3 percent since the previous census in 1989, with 30 percent more Russians speaking Latvian since 1989.
The lowest Latvian language proficiency is registered in the southeastern city of Daugavpils, the country's second-largest city with a population of over 100,000, where 41.4 percent of the population speaks Latvian. The capital Riga, with a population of around 1 million, has a state language proficiency level 10 percent lower than the country's average of around 69 percent. The census shows that Latvia is populated by over 150 different ethnic groups. The two predominating languages in the country are Latvian and Russian.
Latvian is the state language in Latvia to counterbalance the strong presence in the country of a non-Latvian population following 50 years of Soviet occupation. Ethnic Latvians are a minority in Riga, the biggest city in the Baltic states.
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