Having promulgated the Law, the President of Latvia sent a letter to Madam Speaker of the Saeima Ināra Mūrniece, where he stressed that the issues affecting the identity of the Latvian nation, cohesion of the Latvian society, and foundations of the statehood of Latvia should be carefully assessed, when looking for correct solutions, which the majority of the Saeima and the Latvian public would support.
“The Latvian society requires a qualitative discussion of whether the affiliation to the Latvian nation can be determined based only on origin/birth of a person or a different solution can be possible, which makes affiliation to the Latvian nation open for those persons, who wish to confirm communion of their fate with Latvians,” considered the President of Latvia.
In order to search for a sound and correct solution that would strengthen the state of Latvia and cohesion of our society, Raimonds Vējonis intends to organize expert discussions on the principles to define affiliation to the Latvian nation, and he calls on the Saeima to continue working on this issue.
The current regulation provides that nationality of a person is determined based on ethnic origin, which can be proved by nationality of a person’s direct ascendants within two generations. Discussions on possibilities to change the current understanding of determination of a person's affiliation to the Latvian nation have taken place in the Saeima both during the debate on the amendments to the Law on change of a record of name, surname, and nationality adopted on September 15 and during the 11th convocation of the Saeima. However, this fundamental issue for the state and the public of Latvia is addressed without any prior analysis and a wider public debate.
“We must consider carefully and we must have a serious debate on the issue, while assessing it in the context of the Satversme requirements, interests of the state of Latvia, and practice in other European countries. We must ensure that the commitment expressed in the preamble of the Satversme to guarantee existence and development of the Latvian nation, Latvian language, and culture through the centuries, turns from words inscribed in the Satversme to deeds,” indicated the President of Latvia in his letter to the Madam Speaker of the Saeima.