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On Friday, 10 December, while meeting with social partners and parliament’s cooperation partners, Speaker Solvita Āboltiņa emphasised that stability, partnership and responsibility are the key words describing the process of adopting the state budget for 2011. Mrs. Āboltiņa expressed gratification at the fact that Latvia is one of the few European countries that has managed to draft a stabilization budget for the year 2011. “We have to join our efforts and do our best in order for the 2012 budget to be a development budget,” said the Speaker.

On Thursday, 9 December, at the first reading, the Saeima supported the draft state budget for 2011. The Draft Law on the State Budget for 2011 was adopted at the first reading with 69 members of parliament voting for, 26 voting against, and no one abstaining. The Saeima plans to consider the budget law package at the second and final reading on 16 December.

“The next year’s budget clearly shows that the economy of our country is starting to rebound. While two previous budgets can be characterised as crisis budgets, this one is a stabilisation budget. I am genuinely gratified that at a time when public expenditures are being cut, a quarter of the budget is earmarked for development. At the same time, this budget protects pensioners, people with children and people with low or medium low income. Therefore, this is also a socially responsible budget,” pointed out Mrs. Āboltiņa.

The Speaker acknowledged that already at the budget drafting stage, the government had consulted a wide range of social and cooperation partners and had reached several significant compromises. Mrs. Āboltiņa emphasised that this kind of partnership should now continue in the Saeima in the form of cooperation with parliamentary committees.

Both parties agreed that the discussion on the strategic goals of the country should take place in the parliament and should involve the cooperation partners. During the conversation, they agreed to hold regular meetings between the Speaker and the cooperation partners.

The Speaker also emphasised that adoption of the budget should be conducted responsibly: “One can already feel a tendency to abandon austerity at first positive signs. Many people are indulging in the illusion that after 2012 salaries will be the same as in the boom years. They will not. I would even say that the real crisis occurred during the boom years; it was a crisis of values and of moderation. Only during recent years we have started to live within our means and with the prospect of stability. Therefore, I am glad that the draft budget was prepared by looking several years ahead and by keeping in mind both immediate and future goals – primarily, adoption of the euro in 2014.”

Mrs. Āboltiņa expects a sense of responsibility to permeate the proposals that MPs, social partners, parliament’s cooperation partners and other groups of society will submit regarding next year’s budget. “We have to maintain the clear economic course taken by our government,” stressed the Speaker.

Representatives of the Latvian Free Trade Union Federation, the Employers' Confederation of Latvia, the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Latvian Association of Local and Regional Governments took part in today’s meeting.

Press Service