Vejonis' proposal to stop registering newborns as non-citizens to be rejected because of National Alliance's objections

RIGA - The government coalition will not back President Raimonds Vejonis’ proposal to stop registering children born in Latvia as non-citizens because the initiative has met resistance from the National Alliance.

At the National Alliance’s initiative, the issue was today discussed at a meeting of the coalition cooperation council. “We reminded that the coalition agreement defines the issues on which a consensus has to be reached before we can move forward. Expansion of the body of citizens is one such issues,” the National Alliance’s co-chairman Raivis Dzintars told journalists.

The politician argued that the president’s initiative cannot be supported because Latvia still lacks a uniform education system. After the National Alliance today informed its partners that it will exercise its veto rights, coalition partners confirmed they will not endorse the president’s legislative initiative.

Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis (Greens/Farmers) said that the issue is nonnegotiable given the National Alliance’s stance. The premier declined to further comment on the president’s initiative. “The government is stable and I would not like to start a discussion that could affect this stability,” he said.

Arvils Aseradens, chairman of Unity party, also said there was no point in starting such discussions as long as one of the partners was blocking the issue.

As reported, President Vejonis has proposed to allow children of Latvia’s non-citizens to become Latvian citizens at birth, unless their parents choose to give them the citizenship of some other country. In Vejonis’ opinion, the time has come in Latvia to cease assigning non-citizen status to non-citizens’ offspring.

“A carefully weighed parliament decision will be important, because all children who live in Latvia are our children, including the existing ones and those who will be born. It’s time to cease assigning non-citizen status because we are a European country, we live in a progressive, modern state that might be ready for such challenges,” Vejonis said.