On Thursday, 14 March, the Saeima adopted amendments to the Criminal Law and the Criminal Procedure Law in order to improve the provisions on applying coercive measures to legal entities. The draft laws containing amendments proposed by the Legal Affairs Committee of the Saeima were deemed urgent and adopted in the plenary in two readings.
Press releases
Āboltiņa thanks the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Luxembourg for supporting Latvia’s OECD aspirations (13.03.2013.)
On Wednesday, 13 March, Solvita Āboltiņa, Speaker of the Saeima, met with Jean Asselborn, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Luxembourg, and thanked him for Luxembourg’s support regarding Latvia’s membership in the OECD.
“With the approach of Latvia’s first presidency of the Council of the European Union, we are interested in developing closer cooperation with Luxembourg, which together with Italy and Latvia will make up the presidency trio,” pointed out Solvita Āboltiņa, Speaker of the Saeima, on Tuesday, 12 March, during her official visit to Luxembourg as she met with Laurent Mosar, Speaker of the parliament of Luxembourg.
On Thursday, 7 March, the Saeima in the second and final reading adopted amendments to the Law on Enterprise Income Tax, thereby improving the legal framework for preventing bribery.
Saeima supports participation of Latvian soldiers in the EU’s military mission aimed at training the Malian Armed Forces (07.03.2013.)
On Thursday, 7 March, the Saeima supported the draft resolution on participation of the Latvian National Armed Forces in the European Union’s training mission in Mali (EUTM Mali) aimed at training the Malian Armed Forces.
“During discussions on the introduction of the euro, we often hear the names of countries, including the so-called new European Union (EU) member states, which are not planning to accede to the euro area in the near future. However, that is misleading. Not so long ago Algirdas Butkevičius, the new Lithuanian Prime Minister, told me that the Lithuanian government wants to join the euro area as soon as possible. This year near-by Poland, whose economy is developing successfully and whose clout in the European Union is increasing, has started a discussion on the introduction of the euro.” Solvita Āboltiņa, Speaker of the Saeima, emphasised this on Friday, 22 February, when addressing the participants of the high-level international conference “Experience with and Preparations for the Euro” held in the main building of the Saeima.
On Friday, 22 February, an international conference on Experience with and Preparations for the Euro will be held at the Saeima in order to promote a discussion on introduction of the single European currency, the euro, in Latvia, to address possible challenges, as well as to learn about the experience of other EU member states in introducing the euro.
Young people between the ages of 15 and 20 are invited to apply for election to the 3rd convocation of the Youth Parliament. One hundred youths who have the most convincing ideas will gather at the Saeima at the end of April in order to jointly discuss issues of common interest. Participation and personal experience will give the youths clearer insight into the everyday work of the parliament and will help them to understand political processes in a parliamentary democracy.
The Saeima hosts almost 250 youths on Job Shadow Day (14.02.2013.)
On Job Shadow Day, Wednesday, 13 February, the Saeima hosted 248 shadows from all around Latvia who came to learn about the professional life of MPs and staff members of the Saeima. As in previous years, youths showed an active interest in the parliament, and the Saeima is traditionally one of the most popular hosts of shadows in the state.
Baltic MPs: Coordinated policy and stable business environment are needed to boost Baltic economic growth (11.02.2013.)
On Friday, 8 February, at the meeting of the Economics, Energy and Innovation Committee of the Baltic Assembly (BA), while discussing ways to strengthen economic cooperation among the Baltic States, members of the BA and representatives from the business community agreed unanimously that the business environment can be improved and economic growth can be facilitated by harmonising the national legal frameworks, uniformly transposing EU directives, implementing stable common policies on taxation and industry and developing joint infrastructure projects in the Baltic States.